


Please Please Please

by codswallop



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angsty Schmoop, Doctor John, Hurt Lestrade, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, Kid Mycroft, Kid Sherlock, M/M, Nanny John Verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-09
Updated: 2013-05-08
Packaged: 2017-12-07 23:42:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/754471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/codswallop/pseuds/codswallop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A medical casefic AU of Emungere and Elfbert's <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/collections/nanny_john">Nanny John Verse</a> and its blogs, in which Sherlock is currently 7,  Mycroft is 14, John is their long-suffering guardian, and Lestrade has had a mysterious cough for WEEKS.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ***Warning: hospital scenes and medical procedures, severe illness, some discussion of cancer. Also, the medical accuracy of this fic is probably about on par with that of your average soap opera.***
> 
> Thanks to small_hobbit for Britpicking, handholding, and encouragement to post. ariadnes_string, king_touchy, and ollipop also read various chapters and provided much help.
> 
> [This blog entry](http://boringlifeofjohnwatson.blogspot.com/2013/03/dot-dot-dot.html)’s comments were what set this whole thing off. I’m indebted to Emungere and Elfbert for creating these versions of the characters, for giving Lestrade such an irresistible cough for me to play with, and for generously letting me mess around in their sandbox. 
> 
> None of this actually happens in their ‘verse.

Something was definitely wrong.

Or maybe not. John didn't seem concerned, and he'd know, wouldn't he? People got nasty-sounding coughs all the time. Annoying, yeah, but there was nothing to be done for it, probably. He'd get over it. And at least it was no worse than the day before. Maybe. Christ, it did hurt, though, a deep ache behind his breastbone that never seemed to let up now even between bouts.

Lestrade rubbed at the ache and sighed, which made him cough again. Supposed to be napping, but the flat was always a zoo the day after Mycroft arrived home for his holidays - boys squabbling, dogs barking, security staff in and out. John was getting tea for everyone; he'd barely spoken to him all day. Maybe still not quite over their not-really-a-quarrel from last week. Lestrade didn't want to think about it any more. He'd fucked up, that was all. Best he could do was to keep his mouth shut now and avoid doing any more stupid damage.

He wished he hadn't gone out that morning. The cold had got right down into his bones, and the shivering made his chest ache worse. He'd felt too guilty saying no again to Sherlock, though. "Sure you're up to it?" John had asked, and Lestrade could feel how much he wanted the answer to be yes. 

He was fine. He'd sleep it off. He wouldn't fuck everything up again this time.

*

When the bedroom door creaked, he kept his back turned to it resolutely, feigning sleep. It wasn't Sherlock; Sherlock would have pounced on him by now. "Hey," John said softly. "You awake?"

He really wasn't, Lestrade decided. Not fully. Better if he was asleep. He didn't move.

A mug was set down with a muffled clink on the bedside table, and the duvet was drawn up over his shoulders. He needed to cough again, but he could hold it in, he thought, if only John didn't stay long.

"Everyone's gone out dog-walking," John said. "Should be quieter for a bit. Do you want anything? Soup? You're a terrible faker, you know; you're never this still when you're asleep."

"I’ll come down and make dinner when they get back," Lestrade murmured, but the words disturbed the cough he'd been holding back. It broke through in a series of deep, bone-rattling barks, lifting him to a half-sitting position for the minute it lasted. 

"That's not getting any better," John said, sounding grim.

Lestrade lay back down, wincing at the soreness of his sprung abdominals, gasping a little for air. He wanted to say Sorry, he wanted to say I'm Fine, but his chest was too tight and only a wheeze came out.

"Right," John sighed. "Sit up, I want to have another listen."

"What, again? You just did that," Lestrade said, raspily. 

"Two days ago, yeah. And I was a bit distracted by the Boy Wonder at the time. Come on, up. Won't take long." He was already fetching his stethoscope from the bureau where he'd left it out the other night, warming the chestpiece against the palm of his hand.

Lestrade struggled upright, wincing again, reluctant to leave the warm burrow of the duvet.

"Cold?" John asked. "You can leave your shirt on this time. I'll be quick." He came over and placed the stethoscope against Lestrade's back, listening through his t-shirt, and Lestrade inhaled deeply without being asked. Exhaled.

It always made his heart race a little when John did this, from a complicated mix of feelings. Part embarrassed, part fearful, part turned-on, he supposed. If John noticed--which he'd have to, wouldn't he?--he never mentioned it. He moved the chestpiece, and Lestrade tried to take another deep breath in, but this one caught and snagged on another round of harsh, barking coughs.

John kept a hand between his shoulderblades, steadying him till he'd finished. "Done?" he said, and waited for his nod. 

Lestrade watched John's face when he moved to listen to the front of his chest. Impassive, absorbed. Bloody gorgeous, too. Weird having him this intimately close when he was obviously a million miles away at the same time. John's glance flicked up and he saw Lestrade watching him, gave a small humourless smile, and looked away again, still intent on listening to him breathe. 

Half his patients must have been in love with him, Lestrade thought, and felt suddenly weak with the knowledge that this lovely serious man was his. Only not. Not really. There were parts of John he'd never be able to touch, not even if they lived together the rest of their lives.

"Okay," John said at last, stepping back and taking the stethoscope out of his ears. "That's...not great. I'd have you at your doctor's tomorrow if it weren't the weekend. Lie back down, you're shaking. I didn't know you were running a fever. When did that start?"

"Don't know," Lestrade mumbled, feeling relieved, almost glad--a fever was at least proof he wasn't playing all this up for attention, which he'd almost begun to suspect John of thinking. "Am I? I'm just cold. Haven't warmed up from going out this morning."

"That was four hours ago," John said, feeling his face, his forehead. "Not much of a temp, maybe, but if you've got chills it's probably on its way up. You're definitely off dinner detail. Maybe you can still sleep it off." 

Lestrade nodded, eyes closed. If he was actually ill, he wondered, why did John sound so angry at him?

Not that he didn’t deserve it, he reminded himself.

*

Inhaling was becoming an issue, but it hadn’t been actually impossible before. Lestrade opened his eyes, disoriented, and found Sherlock sitting on his stomach, leaning over and staring solemnly at him from a distance of about six inches.

“Hey, kiddo,” Lestrade said. “D’you mind getting off me? Bit difficult to breathe.”

Sherlock shifted his weight forward and leaned over further instead, planting his hands on Lestrade’s shoulders and bringing his face closer until their noses and foreheads touched. “You are really really really really really really” --he had to stop and take a breath-- “hot.”

Lestrade lifted him up and moved him aside, and Sherlock flopped down next to him on John’s side of the bed, kicking restlessly and staring at him with his chin on his hands. “Does John know you’re up here?” Lestrade asked him.

“No. He thinks I’m reading in my room. He’s being boring. Not as boring as you though. Although if you’re actually ill that might be interesting. Can I take your temperature? You’re _boiling_. I bet it’s over forty.”

“No,” Lestrade said. “I’m fine, Sherlock, I’m only tired.”

“Tired and _hot_ ,” Sherlock pronounced, bumping foreheads with him again. “I’m telling John.”

“No, don’t--” Lestrade started to say, but he started coughing again, and then coughing more, one of the bouts that made him have to sit up and struggle for breath with his head between his knees.

“Definitely telling,” Sherlock said, his eyes huge, and rolled off the bed and ran out of the room. “Johhhhhhhn,” Lestrade heard him hollering as he thudded down the stairs. “Lestrade is awake and he’s coughing again and he’s _boiling hot_ and I think he has the plague after all! Can you come and see?”

Lestrade pressed his fingertips into his eye sockets. They did feel hot. His mobile buzzed.

_Be up in a minute. You ok?_

_Yeah fine,_ he texted back. _Havent got plauge._

He dozed off while waiting for the sound of footsteps on the stairs again. His mobile buzzed again instead. _Sorry got busy helping M w dinner. U really ok? S says u have bad fever?_

 _Fine_ Lestrade texted again. _Same. Tired._

_Ill keep him dnstrs. Bring u tea in a bit._

Lestrade thought he should probably get up and search for some paracetamol tablets, but the weight on his chest was too heavy. He dozed off again.

*

The next waking was particularly confusing because it was very loud. And hot. And loud. He was trying to get up--he couldn’t breathe lying down--but someone kept pushing him back. And Sherlock was shouting. Had he got hurt again? Oh god. _Fuck fuck fuck_ Lestrade thought, panicking. Was it his fault again? Was he meant to be watching him? Mycroft was there too, talking over Sherlock, trying to get him to quiet down with his voice cracking everywhere. What was Sherlock saying? _I told you. I told you I told you I TOLD YOU. No one ever listens to me and I am always right!_

"You did tell me, Sherlock," John said--so John was there too, thank Christ, although his voice was sharp and deep in the way it only ever got when something very bad was happening. Danger voice. "I apologise for not listening, but I need you to go downstairs right now."

A Sherlock howl. "No! What are you going to do? I want to watch, I want to help, I NEED to watch. You both said I was an excellent assistant and I know all about breath sounds now because you taught me the other day!"

"I'll get Anthea," Mycroft announced, and left.

"No, that's not necessary," John called after him. "Sherlock," he said, in his Danger voice. "Go with Mycroft, please. I know you want to help, but you can't right now."

"But--"

"Sherlock!" 

Sherlock went.

"All right. You're all right," John told Lestrade. He'd been helping him sit up and stacking pillows behind his back while he was talking to the boys. "Shallow breaths, don't gasp."

Lestrade was awake now, and slightly more coherent. "Sorry," he said. "Got scared. Not enough air. Felt like I was being...smothered."

"That's a bad feeling," John agreed. "Quiet a minute, okay?" He had his stethoscope out again, and he didn't stop to warm it up this time; he stuck it straight up inside Lestrade's t-shirt without warning. "Christ, that escalated fast," he said, listening. "The fever's probably not helping anything. You haven't taken anything for it?" Lestrade shook his head and started coughing again, and John tightened his grip on his shoulder, helping him lean forward till he was done and then pushing him gently back against the pillows. He went and fetched a thermometer, which Lestrade accepted without comment and then closed his eyes once it was under his tongue. He didn't like seeing the look on John’s face.

"Forty point two, almost," John said a minute later. "Sherlock was right. I hate to say it, but we should probably go to A&E.”

“Oh, fuck that,” Lestrade said.

“I know. I know. It’s no fun. But you’re--”

“No, I mean actually fuck that.” Lestrade could hear his own voice sounding strange and shaky. “I’m not going. You don’t want to deal with me yourself, that’s fine. Go back to ignoring me then. I’ll get over it on my own.”

Had he really said that? He had, judging by the way the silence in the room had changed suddenly. John had gone very...still. He cleared his throat, started to say something, stopped and shook his head, then strode quickly out of the room.

He was back almost right away, though, with a glass of water and two pills. Lestrade looked at them for a moment, then reached out to take them.

"Budge up," John said, and climbed into the bed behind Lestrade, replacing the pillows with his own body. Arms around his chest, face buried in his neck. Lestrade kept focusing on breathing. Everything ached, inside and out.

"I'm so sorry,” John said, with his chin on Lestrade’s collarbone, his voice a low vibrating hum that went all through him. “I know I haven't been...right, never mind that now. I'll stay with you the entire time at hospital, that's an absolute promise, but we really do need to get you there soon. You’ll need drugs I don't have access to and I don't think it can wait." He kissed Lestrade on the neck, nuzzling him. "All right?"

"All right," Lestrade said, giving in at last to the humiliation of having failed, needing help. John sighed, holding him tighter for a long moment, and then climbed back out from behind him. 

"I should go and talk to Mrs. Hudson and Anthea," John said. "And the boys. Sherlock won't be happy."

"Is Sherlock okay?" Lestrade asked. "I wasn't watching. My fault."

"He's...fine, yeah." John's frown deepened, and he brushed a lingering hand against Lestrade's cheek. "He's fine. He's just downstairs. Nothing's your fault, love. The fever's making you confused, that's all. I'll be back in a few minutes."

Lestrade nodded and shut his eyes again. It hurt too much to argue. Everything was terrible beyond repair, everything was his fault. Everything.

*

John went downstairs and found Sherlock huddled in a tear-streaked ball on the sofa. He sat down next to him and gathered him up, and Sherlock burrowed against his body, rubbing his wet face on John's shirt front. "Is he dead?" he asked in a muffled voice. Mycroft, sitting at the desk with his laptop, rolled his eyes and made a disgusted sound, and John shot him a look.

"Not even close," he told Sherlock. "He's pretty ill, though. Listen to me, because you're not going to like this but it's non-negotiable. I need to take Lestrade to hospital for a bit and you can't come with us. I know," he said, when Sherlock jerked away from him with his mouth already open, wearing a completely outraged look of seven-year-old keenly felt injustice. "And I’m sorry. But believe me, Sherlock, I know everything you're going to say and it will not change my mind."

"You don't know everything I'm going to say! And I'm right! And why does he have to go, why can't you take care of him here, you're a doctor and I bet Mummy could get you anything you need if we don't have it here already and I could help!"

"Sherlock," Mycroft said, sounding annoyed. "That's completely--"

"Please," John said, cutting him off. "Please don't argue. I don't have time to explain it in detail, Sherlock. I'm worried about Lestrade, so I’m not the best person to take care of him right now, and I want to get help for him as quickly as possible."

"Pneumonia?" Mycroft asked. He was probably trying to sound grown-up and knowing, but his voice cracked again, and it came out in an unsteady warble.

"I don't know. That'd be my first guess, but he'll need a chest x-ray. Some sort of aggressive infection, anyway, from the way his temperature rose so high so quickly.”

“And his lungs were already all damaged and maybe black from when he used to smoke,” Sherlock said, wide-eyed. “I don’t really want to cut him open, though. Not yet. How long will you be gone? I still think I should be allowed to go with you. I know a LOT and I’d find out more while we were there, and I’d keep you company and distract you so you wouldn’t worry so much.”

John pulled him in for another hug. “I don’t know how long we’ll be gone,” he said. “I hope not long. Probably all night, anyway, and maybe longer if they decide to admit him. It’ll be very, very boring, Sherlock, loads of waiting around and sitting still in places where you have to be quiet. But Lestrade will still need a lot of taking care of and monitoring after we get him home again, I expect, so I’ll definitely be wanting your help then.”

Mycroft flashed him a look: _well played_ , and John gave him a small smile over Sherlock’s head. “You’ll text us while you’re doing all the waiting bits?” Mycroft asked. He’d looked a bit gutted at the words _aggressive infection_ , and John wasn’t sure how to reassure him without getting Sherlock worked up again. He wasn’t even sure he could, in honesty.

“Constantly,” John promised.

*

A&E was a nightmare. A loud, cold, incredibly uncomfortable nightmare. John got him settled in one of the hard green plastic chairs in Reception and then went to deal with the front desk and their endless intake paperwork, leaving Lestrade to hunch over with his head in his hands and try not to relive every horrible time he'd ever been in one of these places before. He felt like he was breathing through a straw that kept getting smaller and smaller, and he was nearly in a state of blind panic when a touch on the back of his neck made him start up with a violent flinch.

"Hey, shh," John said, kneeling in front of him, looking up into his face with such terrible concern that Lestrade had to shut his eyes, shutting him out. "Come on, I've got you a trolley in one of the triage rooms--it's not nice and we'll probably have to wait forever still to be seen, but at least it's quieter than here and you can lie down. Can you walk a bit? Not far."

John pulled the curtain round the trolley and helped him change into a gown--Lestrade was almost beyond minding the indignity, but it was bloody miserable getting undressed in the chill. "Nice pants," John said, deadpan, because he was wearing the ones John had given him in his stocking at Christmas, with ARSENAL across the arse. "Let's hope whoever sees you isn’t a Tottenham supporter."

Lestrade nodded, because even a wan smile would have been too much extra work, and lay gingerly down, shivering. John found a blanket to cover him up, then covered the blanket with his coat when he failed to stop shaking. The paracetamol he'd had at home had taken the edge off his fever, but he almost wished it hadn't. Chills were worse. Felt like he'd never get warm again.

They waited. John texted the boys. A triage nurse came in and took Lestrade's vitals, smiled sympathetically, said she thought it wouldn't be much longer, and vanished again.

Much later, a very young-looking junior doctor swept aside the curtain and began to ask for his history, then stopped when she caught sight of John. "I'm sorry. Mr...?"

"Doctor Watson," John said, standing up and extending his hand, smiling neutrally.

"My fiancé," Lestrade said quickly. "I'd like him to stay."

The young doctor said that would be fine, and it was, until she asked him about the onset and duration of his symptoms and whether he'd noticed any sudden increase in their severity.

Lestrade explained about the cough. "Was getting better, then it came on strong again a few days ago...Wednesday?"

"Thursday," John said quickly. "I mean...sorry. That was the first day you mentioned it again. I think. Pretty sure."

"Right, whatever day that was, then, when you...when I said."

"Any shortness of breath, wheezing, feeling of constriction?" 

"Er...all of the above, yeah," Lestrade said, not looking at John. "Since Thursday. Bit before that, maybe."

"Did you seek out medical care, have you been taking antibiotics or any other medications?"

"No. I mean, John, Dr. Watson, he's been...but no. No medication." 

John cleared his throat. "He's had a lot of bronchial congestion, but his lungs were clear as of forty-eight hours ago. No decreased breath sounds until today when the temp started."

The young woman gave him a brief quizzical look. "You're a medical doctor, then? Currently employed?"

"Not currently," John said. "RAMC. Discharged. And...not currently employed as a doctor, no."

"I see," she said. "Well. Let's have a look at you, Mr.--” she checked the chart, “--Lestrade, all right?"

Her hands were colder and lighter than John's, her manner more brisk. She didn't say anything at all when she listened to Lestrade's lungs, but she kept at him for a long time with the stethoscope, and then said she was going to order a chest x-ray straight away and directed them to a waiting room on the third floor. Then she left again, briskly still, devoid of pleasantries.

John passed him his trousers. "You'll want these. In fact, might as well just get dressed again for now; it'll be another wait. Can't have you walking the halls practically bare-arsed, anyway. You'll cause riots."

"Only if there's any Spurs fans around," Lestrade joked, feebly.

"Hmm," John agreed. He started helping Lestrade disentangle himself from the gown. 

"John," Lestrade said, while he ducked awkwardly back into his t-shirt. "When she asked about...I didn't mean you should have done anything different. I didn't mean anything."

"Of course I should have," John said. "I should have sent you to your doctor first thing Friday, got you on antibiotics straight away. Sooner than that, even, maybe weeks ago. But I swear there wasn't any indication, nothing like...I don't know, maybe I missed it, maybe I was too busy with Sherlock. Could I have missed it? I could have, I suppose, I don't know. I don't--"

"I'm sure you didn't," Lestrade said, putting his arms around him, head on his shoulder.

"I didn't _want_ you to be ill,” John confessed. “You kept saying you were fine, and I believed you because I wanted to. But I wouldn't have ignored it, if I'd heard anything, I swear."

"Don't," Lestrade said, feeling worse and worse. "I know. I mean...you're good. Doesn't matter what they think here. You're a good doctor."

"Yeah." John sounded utterly unconvinced, but he stopped talking about it, for which Lestrade was grateful.

*

The wait for the chest x-ray was longer than the wait in triage had been, and there was nowhere to lie down. The paracetamol John had dosed him with had begun to wear off, so Lestrade was hot rather than cold again, which was nice for five minutes and then unbearable. Made it harder to breathe again, too. John brought him a lot of little plastic cups of cold water from the cooler, which he mostly couldn't drink, but they felt nice pressed against his face and neck until his skin heated them up well past lukewarm.

John went up and had words with the waiting room receptionist, in a modified version of his Danger voice, and then had more words with some other, more managerial-looking personnel.

 _Please, please don't get yourself thrown out,_ Lestrade willed him. Just then John's mobile, which he'd left behind on his chair, began to buzz furiously. HOME, the screen said, and then a text message flashed up: I AM NOT GOING TO BED UNTIL I GET TO TALK TO LESTRADE. NON-NEGOTIABLE. -SH

Lestrade hit _return call_. "Hi, kiddo. It's me."

"LESTRADE," Sherlock shouted, loud enough to draw glares from around the waiting room. "Where are you? When are you coming home? What are they doing to you there? I need to know ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING and I need you to tell Mrs. Hudson I AM allowed to read in bed as late as I want, and-- NO, Mycroft, you can't have the phone it's MY TURN."

Lestrade couldn't help but smile a bit. "I'm waiting to get my lungs x-rayed, short stuff. I don't know what happens after that. Not really allowed to talk on the phone here, but we'll call you in the morning if we're not home by then."

"In the MORNING? But that's a lot of hours from now!"

"I know," Lestrade said. "Sort of trying not to think about that actually. Can you put Mycroft on for just a sec? I love you. I miss you. Please go to bed and be good for Mrs. Hudson."

"All right," Sherlock grumped. “Here’s Mycroft.”

"Hi," Mycroft said. "Sorry. He wasn’t meant to have the phone; I don’t know how he got hold of it."

"It's all right. Sorry for mucking up your holidays."

"That's not exactly my greatest concern at present," Mycroft told him stiffly.

"No, I know, but I'm sorry anyway. Just wanted to say goodnight and I love you."

Mycroft hesitated. "I love you too, of course," he said, as reluctantly as only a fourteen-year-old boy could. "The sudden sentimentality's rather worrying, though, to be honest."

"I'm a bit feverish," Lestrade admitted. "Sorry. Again. What's Sherlock shouting about now?"

"He forgot to tell you something. One thing, Sherlock. One," Mycroft said.

Sherlock took the phone again. "Iloveyoutoogoodnight," he said, and disconnected the call.

John had returned by this point, and was standing in front of Lestrade's chair with his hands in his pockets. 

“What?” Lestrade asked. “What’s that look for?”

“You,” John said, kicking him lightly on the toe. “You and them. Ready? They'll take you next." He nodded his chin at the door marked A&E RADIOLOGY - PATIENTS ONLY.

"Oh, thank Christ. How'd you do that? Never mind. Tell me later. You'll wait here? Think I can manage this bit on my own." He was pretty sure he could, though he swayed when he stood up and had to take a minute till the dizziness cleared.

"All right," John said, a bit doubtfully. "Take care. I'll be right here."

*

When Lestrade returned, fifteen minutes later, he dropped into the chair next to John's, leaned over and murmured, "Hold out your hand." John did, and Lestrade dropped a pair of small curved silver barbells into his palm.

"Oh god," John said, pocketing them. "Yeah, I thought of that about a minute after you went in. I’ll help you put them back in later. How was it?"

"Cold," Lestrade said, shuddering. "Really bloody cold. And they kept telling me to hold my breath right when I needed to cough. It’ll be hours yet before they can get anyone to read the results, won’t it? Can’t we just...go home and wait?”

They were sent back downstairs, though, to another room of curtained cubicles and gowns laundered thin and neighbouring moans and cries. Lestrade’s temperature rose again, and he lay back and...not dozed, he thought, so much as faded in and out, opening his eyes over and over to reassure himself with the sight of John nodding off in the chair next to him. John. Not Bryan. Bryan never would have been there anyway, of course, but Lestrade couldn’t help checking, every so often, to make sure he hadn’t changed. 

At one point in the formless bright-lit night, he startled awake and must have made some sort of distressed noise, because John got up quickly out of his chair and leaned over to pet his hair. "Okay, love?" he asked. "How are you bearing up?”

“Chest hurts,” he mumbled, which made a line appear between John’s already-furrowed eyebrows. 

“I’m going to the nurses’ station,” he said. “Get you some ice chips, maybe see if I can get you bumped up in the queue a bit, all right?”

Lestrade fumbled to take his hand so he could hold on to him. “Don’t want you to go.”

“I won’t. I won’t.” John was looking more and more agitated now. “I only want to--oh, you’re, that's--right, let me just--NURSE!” he shouted, full-on Danger in zero to sixty, and there were running soft-shoed footsteps and then a low-voiced flurry of explanation and demand and placation.

Approximately two minutes later, another doctor came into the cubicle, read Lestrade’s chart, and obtained his drowsy consent to examine him with Dr. Watson present. 

“His lips went bluish sometime in the last thirty minutes,” John said quickly. “And he’s complaining of chest pain. We're waiting for his x-rays to be sent down, but in the meantime can you get him on oxygen, and--sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sure there is absolutely nothing worse than trying to treat a patient with relations who've had the slightest bit of medical training, but I was a field medic and trauma surgeon for twelve years, and--"

"We'll put him on oxygen, assuredly," promised the new doctor, who'd been clipping something to Lestrade's index finger and getting a reading from an ear thermometer while John was babbling. "And an antipyretic. At the very least. It will be fine."

"Right. Yes. It's just--I've been monitoring him, and the progression's been extremely rapid over the past twelve hours. That. There, that's what I wanted to make sure you were aware of, and I'll shut up and let you do your job now."

Lestrade registered the conversation as vaguely distressing background noise, but wasn't entirely sure how it pertained to him. He reached up to touch his lips; they didn't feel blue. John sounding this upset was never a good thing, though. He was being asked to sit up, which he resented, and then he resented even more being prodded at with another freezing stethoscope, the coldest one yet. 

“Mr. Lestrade, do you know where you are?” 

Lestrade frowned at the man with the calm voice and calm hands. He looked from him to John and back, trying to focus. “Hospital,” he said finally. “Waiting for x-rays. Sherlock’s arm. I only took my eyes off him for a minute, I swear. I’m so sorry, John,” he added, but it did nothing to allay John’s terrible look of worried reproach.

“He’s talking about an accident that happened over a month ago,” John said. “Please, can you--are there any beds in your ICU?”

“Assuredly,” the doctor said again. “You can lie back again now, Mr. Lestrade. It will be fine.”

*

It was not fine, although John was relieved, he supposed, that the doctor had turned out to be competent as well as kind--in less than an hour he'd got Lestrade admitted and onto an IV drip and prophylactic oxygen while they awaited the readings from Radiology.

Still, it was not fine. It was far from fine. He debated over how much to tell the boys about how not-fine it was, but decided at last that honesty was the best policy. He didn't have the energy to keep up a lie, anyway, or even much of a concealment.

"He's on assisted breathing," he explained to Sherlock over the phone at around nine in the morning, when he couldn't put him off with brief texts anymore. "It's called a BiPAP machine. You can look it up online, if you want. Get Mycroft to help you."

"I don't need Mycroft to help me look something up on the Internet!" Sherlock sounded outraged.

"I know, but he might want to know, too. And he can try to answer any questions you might have about it, since I'm not there. It's basically an oxygen mask with big tubes, attached to a machine that pushes air in and out of his lungs."

Sherlock absorbed this. "Do the tubes go down his throat?" he wanted to know. "Does it hurt?"

"Nope. Just a face mask. Doesn't hurt a bit."

"I want to talk to him," Sherlock insisted. "Just for one minute, okay?"

"I wish you could," John told him. "I'm not with him right now, actually--stepped out so I could phone you."

"Can I come and visit later, then?"

"We'll see. Maybe tomorrow after school, if I hear you've been good."

"I have to go to SCHOOL TOMORROW?" 

"You do, in fact. Sorry. Can I talk to your brother now?"

"But I still have loads of questions! You've hardly told me anything at all yet!"

"Write them down," John told him patiently. "I'll call again this afternoon."

Mycroft was more difficult. "I heard you telling Sherlock about the ventilator. So it is pneumonia?"

John sighed and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "No. Probably not, they think. No."

"Ah," Mycroft said. He was silent for a moment, interpreting the weight of John's words and the silence that followed them. "You don't have a diagnosis yet."

"Acute pulmonary distress and fever," John said. "Underlying cause unknown."

"Ah," Mycroft said again, which was unusual for him. "That could mean...several things, I imagine."

"They'll be doing more tests today. And they're giving him IV antibiotics anyway, just in case--it's too soon to tell if he's responding. The likeliest scenario by far is that it's something benign and easily treatable. It’s not time to worry about the less likely scenarios yet.”

“Then I’m sure you won’t,” Mycroft said. How could someone his age be so _dry_? John would never stop marvelling at it.

“Anyway,” John said, forcibly brightening his voice. “I’m sorry I won’t be home again tonight. I hate leaving you for this long. I should probably try to contact your mother, or...”

“And Nicky,” Mycroft reminded him.

“Christ on a-- How have I not called Nicky yet? Thank you. Yes. I will.”

“You should probably do it right away. She sort of...found out already, a bit.” Mycroft sounded hesitant now in a way he almost never was. Hesitant and guilty.

“Oh god. Mycroft, what...?”

“I was texting with Carla last night,” Mycroft admitted. “I’m very sorry. I thought you’d have contacted them already.”

“I didn’t want to worry her last night,” John said, hand at the bridge of his nose again. “I was still hoping we’d be picking up a prescription for amoxicillin and coming right home. All right. I’d better go and see if I can reach her. I’ll phone again as soon as I can. Take care.”

*

Nicky freaked out at him for five minutes straight, scolded him for not calling, finally listened to what he had to say (and didn't say), freaked out a little more, and then announced she was packing some bags and bringing the kids to stay at Baker Street until he could bring Orio home again. 

“You don’t have to do that,” John said, but he said it half-heartedly; he couldn’t help thinking what a godsend it would be to have them there for the boys. He really couldn’t leave them with Mrs. Hudson indefinitely, and things were looking very...indefinite.

“Well, I am anyway. Try and stop me,” she said, sounding so like Lestrade in a strop that it made John smile at first and then have to shut his eyes against the ache. “We’ll be there this afternoon, and then when I visit I can bring you some clothes or whatever you need from home.”

“That would be amazing,” John admitted. “Thank you. I hope it won’t be for long.”

“Orio’s survived everything I could ever have dreamed up and then some,” Nicky told him. “Believe me. He’ll be _fine_.”

He’d have to introduce her to their friend from A&E, John thought. "I've got to go," he said. "I don't want him to wake up and find me gone. He’s been a bit confused."

"Oh John," Nicky said. "Yes, all right. Give him my love anyway."

He checked to make sure Lestrade was still asleep when he returned, and then studied his chart to see if any notes had been made on it in his absence, then looked at the IV bags and monitors. Only after that did he sit down in the chair that had been placed next to the bed and let his chin fall to his chest, hand over his eyes. His mind had been racing ever since they'd got the chest x-ray readings at four in the morning; he was too tense to relax, but his body kept trying to get him to fall asleep whenever he got off his feet, so he decided to give in to it for a little while as a sort of peace offering. Fifteen minutes, he told himself. No more.

*

The next forty-eight hours went by in a vague blur of worry and exhaustion and boredom. John began to miss Lestrade badly, even though he was right there--one of the IV drugs was a sedative to keep his respiration low. He opened his eyes from time to time, sought out John, squeezed his hand, then drooped into heavy sleep again, and that was as much as they interacted for an entire long day and night. He looked so unlike himself with the oxygen mask on, too, that in John’s state of sleep deprivation it was almost difficult to remember it was really him, that John hadn’t fallen down the rabbithole and gone back to Camp Bastion. The sick gut-clench of worry was what always brought it back to him; he’d been concerned about many of his patients before, but never afraid.

On Tuesday they lowered the sedation dosage a bit, and John was there, watching, when Lestrade began blinking, eyes rolling round, unable to focus for the first few minutes. “Hi,” John said, smiling, when he was pretty sure Lestrade was actually seeing him. “Hey. Good morning. Look at you.” Lestrade held his gaze, winced a little, and reached up to touch the oxygen mask. “Yeah, let’s get that off you for a minute, right?” John said, and pulled it carefully away. Lestrade’s face had deep red creases in it where the plastic had been resting, but he looked more like himself again, a bit. John reached for the water next to the bed and helped him take a sip.

“So I’m still here,” Lestrade rasped, very faintly. “That’s crap.” 

John smiled again. “Nicky was here, not long ago,” he said. “You missed it. Be glad. She’d have read you the riot act if you’d been awake.”

“First mum now me,” Lestrade said. His voice was hoarse and weak, hard to understand unless John leaned close. “Poor old Nicks.”

“She’s looking after the boys now. We’re going to owe her I don’t know what. A yacht. Something.”

Lestrade nodded vaguely, looking sleepy again. John kept an eye on his oxygen levels, which were dipping, and his heart rate, which was up. “Listen,” John said. “They want to do a bronchoscopy later on this afternoon--put a tube down your throat and have a look round. I don’t know how awake you’ll be when that happens, but I wanted you to know, anyway. Could be a little scary if you wake up in the middle. I’ll be there, though; they promised it’d be fine for me to stay and watch.”

“All right,” Lestrade mumbled. “Good.” His eyelids were closing, and John wasn’t sure if he’d actually taken any of it in. 

"I should put the mask back on you now," he said, and leaned over to give him a quick kiss.

"Hang on," Lestrade said, his eyelids flickering open again. "Want to ask something. First."

"Anything, yeah, course." John braced himself. He could do this, just about, if he didn't have to talk about it. Words would poke a hole in him that he'd drain right through, seemed like. Still, he couldn't refuse.

"Been here...what? Two days now?"

"Coming up on three."

"How come I," Lestrade stopped to breathe. "Don't have to piss?"

John covered his mouth, then rubbed at it to keep from laughing. "You. No, of course that's what you'd ask me, moment like this, you enormous...God I love you. You've got a Foley cath in; you don't remember? Hm. Good thing. You didn't much care for it. Okay, enough now." He kissed Lestrade again, then fixed the oxygen mask back into place.

*

What he hadn't told Lestrade--because he couldn't say the words, could hardly think them--was that he’d found out an hour ago that part of the reason for the bronchoscope was to take a lung tissue sample for biopsy.

"There's no obvious mass, no polyps or tumours," said the doctor who'd gone over with him the results of the chest CT they'd done the day before. "But this cloudiness--see here, and here?--that's a red flag combined with his history of smoking. We need to be able to rule it out before we run any further diagnostics."

Rule it out. It. Lung cancer. John had nodded and frowned, and asked the right questions in the right concerned-yet-firm tone of voice, because it was extremely useful to have the doctors here treat him like a colleague and not a troublesome next of kin. When the conversation was over and the doctor had gone off on his rounds, though, he'd had to sink into the nearest chair and do controlled breathing with his head between his knees in order to keep from blacking out. A concerned nurse had come over to him ten minutes later and taken his pulse and brought him tea and biscuits. He'd got the tea down. The biscuits wouldn't go. But he'd managed to thank her, and then he'd made himself stand up and go to the loo and use the shaving kit Nicky had brought over for him, though his hands were shaking so badly that he'd cut himself three times.

He could do this. Had to. And Sherlock was at school, Mycroft was taking Nicky and her two to lunch, so he wouldn't have to talk to any of them for a few more hours; he was almost sure he could sound normal enough again by then.

The actual procedure was difficult. Not medically. Technically it went perfectly well. He explained to a still very groggy Lestrade what was going to happen, that he’d be given numbing spray and morphine before it started and he shouldn’t feel much beyond occasional pressure, and then when it started and they tipped Lestrade’s head back and began to put the tube in, John discovered that he couldn’t watch. He had to pretend he was back in medical school, observing something being done to a complete stranger, in order to stay in the room at all. He stared at the camera monitor, steadily watching miles of laryngeal tissue unfurl in soporific pink waves, and everything was briefly okay until the pulmonologist said “Right, take as deep a breath as you can, we’re going to pass it through the vocal cords now,” and Lestrade’s limp hand in his came suddenly to life, gripping John in panic as he gagged.

“Bit more of the anesthetic spray,” the doctor said calmly. “You’re fine, Mr. Lestrade,” and waited till he’d relaxed again, but John was nearly on his feet with tension and couldn’t summon up a single calming word. “All right, Mr--Dr. Watson?” 

John nodded, cleared his throat twice, said “Yes, fine,” and forced himself to meet Lestrade’s eyes and at least try to give him a reassuring smile. “Could use a bit of that morphine, if you’ve got any extra,” he told the assisting nurse, and everyone chuckled understandingly and went on as if it were just business, just another day that didn’t have the potential to rip his life to shreds and destroy him utterly. 

After that he didn’t try to talk, just clutched Lestrade’s hand and watched the monitor like a horror movie as the procedure went on and on. No lurking tumours appeared, though, no lesions, and Lestrade was sufficiently numb not to flinch when they introduced the forceps and took a tissue sample. He gagged again when the tube came out, but only a little, and then it was over. 

John’s first instinct even in the middle of going to pieces, apparently, was still to make sure Lestrade was okay. He went to him the moment the nurse finished syringing his mouth out with antiseptic solution. “All right?” he asked, and Lestrade was just able to nod and then pull a slight face, tapping his throat. “I know,” John said. “Tastes horrible, right? Sorry. You did amazingly, though. Beautiful lungs, by the way. Gorgeous. Not black at all. Sherlock will be devastated, won’t he? And...you’re already asleep again. You lucky bastard.” He kissed him on the forehead, then stood up and stretched and cracked his neck, sighing.

“We’ll have the results of the biopsy in around forty-eight hours,” the doctor told him. 

“Any guesses?” John asked her, but she shook her head regretfully.

“Really not a clue on this one. I’m sorry. If you don’t mind a bit of advice, I’d suggest going home and trying for some sleep. They’ll increase his sedation again now the procedure’s over; he probably won’t be aware of much.”

“Oh,” John said. “No. I can’t leave him. Thanks, though, for doing the...and for letting me sit in. I expected I’d be a bit less useless than that, but anyway. Thanks.”

“You were a surgeon in Afghanistan, I hear,” the doctor said, looking at him curiously.

“Mm,” John acknowledged. “Front line casualties, the lot.” He looked at his hands. The left one was in tremor again. “Go figure.”

“I’m sure you were very skilled,” she said. “Which would make something like this all the more difficult, I imagine. I’m off on holiday after my shift today, so...well, best of luck and I hope I never see you again, I suppose.”

“No, God, I hope not,” John said, and then realised that had probably been terrifically rude, but she was already gone.

*

Sherlock came to visiting hours with Nicky, early that evening, and was indeed devastated to learn that Lestrade’s lungs had been fully visible on camera and that Sherlock had not been invited to the viewing. “I can’t believe you didn’t make them wait till I could be here!” he moaned tragically. “Isn’t there at least a recording of it?” 

There probably was, but John had no intention of telling him so. “Only doctors and nurses are allowed to look at the insides of people’s actual lungs,” he told Sherlock. “Yes, it’s a stupid rule, I know. You can go in and see the outside of him for a minute, anyway, if you wash your hands with soap for sixty seconds first and promise to be very quiet.”

“I have a lot of things I need to tell him, though!” 

“Remember what I told you on the phone? He’s asleep. Asleep-ish. He might open his eyes, but he’s pretty drugged up, Sherlock, he won’t be able to understand much of what you tell him right now. You can tell me,” he added quickly, when Sherlock began to look stubborn. “And I’ll tell him when he’s more awake. I’d like to know your things, actually. I’ve been missing you a lot. No hug, huh?”

Sherlock hugged him in a cursory sort of way, and then asked where he could go and wash his hands, so John pointed him to the toilets. 

“He misses you like mad,” Nicky told John, when he’d gone. "You know how they are."

"I know," said John. "Mycroft decided not to come?"

"Said he'd take his turn tomorrow. He wanted Sherlock to have all the visiting time today so they wouldn't have to quarrel over who got more."

"Hmm." John wouldn't question it, he thought; it was a good thing, really, that he didn't have to hold up under Mycroft's scrutiny tonight. Sherlock was both more inward-focused and more easily distractible. And maybe Mycroft really had just been trying to help keep the peace.

Or something. But he couldn't worry about it now.

Sherlock returned, clean-handed. Only two visitors per patient at a time was the rule in this ICU, so John took Sherlock first with a promise to let Nicky visit solo next while he did the debriefing. He was prepared to bring him right back out if Sherlock got upset or asked too many questions or was just too much Sherlock for an eleven-bed unit of critically ill people.

Sherlock stayed quiet, though. He approached Lestrade's bed hesitantly, stopped at the foot of it, and then stood there for a long time, looking. He was very small, and very still. It looked uncanny. "Sherlock," John said, dropping down on one knee next to him, "It's okay, you know, if--"

"Shh! I'm busy." Sherlock waved him off. "I'm memorising."

"Memorising what? You can--"

"Everything," Sherlock said. "That's an IV line, right? For medicines and things? What's the other one?" He pointed.

"That...that's an a-line. Arterial line. For monitoring blood oxygen levels."

"Because his lungs aren't working properly so he's not getting all the oxygen he needs."

"Right. Although the ventilator's helping."

Sherlock nodded and continued to take it all in. After about another minute he looked up at John. "All right. I'm done. Nicky can have her turn now."

"Yeah? You can talk to him a bit, you know, if you want."

Sherlock looked at him in his _are you being silly on purpose_ way. "He's asleep. And all drugged up. You said."

"Well, mostly, yeah. But he might hear your voice anyway, he might like that. And sometimes it feels good to say things to people that you want to say, even if you know they can't understand."

"That's stupid," Sherlock said dismissively. "But if he can hear me a little I'll say something. Don't listen! I want to say it just to him, okay?"

"Okay," John said. He got up and moved back to a respectful distance while Sherlock went close and cupped his hands around Lestrade's ear for a minute, whispering. When he had done, they left and walked silently back to the waiting room to trade off with Nicky.

"I wish I hadn't talked to him," Sherlock told John after a bit, kicking at the legs of the waiting room chair. "I don't think he heard. And he doesn't smell like himself at all. He needs to be in his own bed at home. I hate this place even if it is interesting. How much longer, do you think, before he's okay enough to leave?"

"I don't know, Sherlock. I'm sorry. Soon, I hope, but...I don't know." John thought he was doing a fairly good job of not shattering into bits all over the hospital floor, considering, but Sherlock looked swiftly up at his face and then away again. He didn't respond, but a moment later his hand crept up into John's, and he put his head down on John's shoulder with a small sigh. They sat there like that, watching a terrible talk show on the ICU waiting room telly, until Nicky returned, red-eyed but determinedly smiling, to take Sherlock home.

*

Mycroft was revising. He'd set aside these four hours for himself to focus on his revision, and for that amount of time, he told himself, nothing existed outside the walls of the room he was in. It was excellent practise for learning discipline and focus, really; the more things he knew were clamouring for his attention outside that door, the better.

He came in for a good bit of this sort of practise in general, living in a public school dormitory, but Harrow was nothing on his younger brother. Sherlock must have been aware that he couldn't be loud at one in the morning if he didn’t want to wake the entire household, but what he lacked in volume he made up for in persistence. He’d begun by shoving notes under the door for an hour, on bigger and bigger pieces of paper. When that hadn’t worked, he’d sent a degu to squeeze under the crack, and then another. Mycroft had them under an empty water glass on his desk at present. Now Sherlock was attempting olfactory bids for attention: first coffee, (which he was not permitted to make on his own, but he seemed to have managed), then warm chocolate cake (this had actually been a serious distraction; Mycroft had eventually rubbed a bit of peppermint oil under his nose and kept pegging away), and now, by the sound of it, he was planning to attempt something sulphur-related with his chemistry set.

1:29 in the morning. Mycroft shut his laptop, put his notes back in his attaché case, pushed back his chair, and walked over to the door with slow deliberation. He made Sherlock wait for one more minute before opening it. “I am taking a break from my revision for five minutes,” he announced, setting his watch. "No more and no less. Please put that away and clear up all this paper if you wish to speak with me during that time. Is there any of the cake left?"

"No," Sherlock said. "I ate it. Give me back my degus!" He shoved past Mycroft into the room and swept them in their glass off the desk. "They could have suffocated in there!"

"You should have thought of that before you sent them into hostile territory. Papers and chemistry set, Sherlock. Now."

Sherlock pulled a hideous mocking face at him, but he cleared everything away, put their degus in their cage, and returned. Mycroft looked at his watch. "Three more minutes. You should be asleep. John wouldn't like this, Sherlock. I hope you didn't drink any of that coffee."

"I only like coffee the way Lestrade makes it. With warm milk. I've been waiting and waiting and WAITING to tell you about seeing him in hospital. It's your fault I'm still awake."

“I’ll see him myself tomorrow. What is there to talk about? He’s very ill. I am aware.”

“But he’s been there forever and they’re not fixing him at all! He looks really bad, Mycroft. Loads worse than before he went in.”

“The doctors know what they’re doing. He’s only been in for a few days. It takes medicines longer than that to work, sometimes.”

“But what if they’re giving him the wrong ones? Doctors are mostly stupid, just like everyone else. You said yesterday they haven’t figured out yet what’s making him ill. Not even JOHN knows and he knows lots and lots about diseases!”

“True,” said Mycroft, who hadn’t yet forgiven John for not knowing. “And your point?”

“You should figure it out,” Sherlock said, as if it were obvious. “I can help. I’d do it myself but you’re bigger and they might listen to you more. And...you know more. About some things. Sometimes.” 

Mycroft couldn’t help letting the corners of his mouth turn up at that.

“I said SOME things. SOMEtimes. You’ve had seven more years to read than I have! Anyway, will you? I memorised all the numbers on the monitors and the names of the medicines they’re giving him right now, so we can look them up and then we’ll know what’s not working, and--”

“Sherlock. Even if I could figure something like that out--which is by no means realistic--they wouldn’t listen to me either. I’m a fourteen-year-old student.”

“John might listen,” Sherlock insisted. “And the doctors might listen to John.”

“What if it’s something that can’t be fixed?” Mycroft asked, and immediately wished he hadn’t. Sherlock was only seven, after all. He took it with only a slight widening of his eyes and clenching of his fists, though.

“What if it can?” he countered.

Mycroft’s watch beeped. “Break’s up,” he said, and turned back to the desk. “I’ll think about it, Sherlock. Go to bed now.” He sat calmly down at his laptop again, and that was when Sherlock launched himself at him in a furious silent pummelling windmill of limbs. 

“I hate you when you act like that! You CAN’T be like this right now,” Sherlock whisper-shrieked at him, while Mycroft attempted to hold him off without knocking over any furniture. “You’re going to sit up and revise for your stupid exams that don’t even MATTER but you won’t-- Don’t you care about ANYTHING? I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!” Sherlock was starting to get loud, and his blows really hurt. Mycroft finally got a lock hold on him, pinning his arms to his sides from behind and carrying him over to the bed, dodging his frustrated kicks.

“Stop,” he said, taking Sherlock by the shoulders with a little shake and looking straight into his eyes, trying for the tone that John used when he really meant it. 

Sherlock head-butted him and then started to cry, loudly and inconsolably.

Nicky came in. Anthea came in. Mycroft’s lip was bleeding from being head-butted. Explanations were made, and ice and scoldings were distributed, along with hugs and warmed milk. Sherlock’s sobs died down to hiccups and he asked if he could sleep in Mycroft’s room. 

“Poor mite,” said Nicky. “Only if it’s all right with Mycroft.”

“Of course,” Mycroft said. “Just for tonight, since he’s upset.” Only after they’d left did he add, “You rotten little faker.”

“Not faking,” Sherlock insisted, taking over the duvet and all but one of the pillows to make himself a nest. “I AM upset. And your face hurt my head.”

“I hate sleeping with you. You _kick_.”

“I’ll try not to. I really don’t want to sleep alone. Will you come to bed soon?”

“When I’ve finished what I was going to do tonight,” Mycroft said firmly, and went back to the desk.

There was silence in the room for several minutes. 

“If Lestrade dies, will John leave, do you think?” Sherlock asked in a shaky little voice from somewhere in the middle of the nest on the bed.

Mycroft shut his eyes and sighed. Then he closed his laptop again, turned off the desk lamp, and got into bed. “I’m sure he wouldn’t,” he said. “But it would be incredibly horrible. He won’t die, Sherlock.”

Sherlock was crying again. He gulped out something that Mycroft was able to interpret, with some difficulty, as _that’s what you said about Grand-mère_.

“Oh, for-- Fine, yes, you excel at emotional blackmail. I’ll do whatever I can. Which--though I’m touched by your faith in me--may not be much. Please stop crying.”

“I can’t,” Sherlock said miserably. “I am trying. I HATE crying when I don’t mean to.”

“You are entirely too old for this,” Mycroft said, reaching over to rub Sherlock’s back the way he’d done when he was very little and had nightmares. It probably wasn’t true; he was still only very little, Mycroft realised. He seemed hardly to have grown at all. Mycroft was the one who was too old for it. It brought back bad memories, and he lay awake in the night long after Sherlock had given the shuddery hitching sigh that meant he was finally falling asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lestrade is still mysteriously ill. The boys research and bicker. John tries not to lose his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please see content notes on previous chapter. Thanks again to Small_Hobbit for Britpicking, and to Ariadnes_String for beta notes and cheerleading.

In a small room down the corridor from the main ward there were a few beds, rudimentary folding beds, for friends and family of patients in intensive care. John lay down on one of them for a few hours in the dead of night. He was certain it would be an empty gesture, that he’d lie there turning over various nightmare scenarios in his mind until he was forced to give it up as a bad job. He’d underestimated just how exhausted he was, though. Unconsciousness overtook him almost as soon as he was prone.

When he woke in the dark, he had to fight his way through layers of confusion to get back to the present. The ambient sounds were what threw him most. All the hospitals he’d ever been in swirled round in his brain, and he couldn’t fix on which one he was in or why: student, surgeon, patient? When the answer finally settled into place, he thought with regret that he’d rather have found himself back in any of the other ones, even Selly Oak where he’d done most of his recovery.

 _Then_ he lay turning over various nightmare scenarios, until he decided that was absolutely enough of that and he’d better check in on Lestrade and then find himself some kind of food in the cafeteria that he could manage to swallow. Eggs sounded like a terrible idea. Maybe yoghurt? And he ought to call Nicky, as soon as it was late enough that Sherlock would be in school. He hadn’t told her yet about the biopsy. He still didn’t think he could make himself say the words, although it was unconscionable that he hadn’t kept her informed, unethical really--

He was still contemplating the ethics of disclosure and trying in the back of his mind to work up enthusiasm for yoghurt when his phone rang, startling him badly. It was Mycroft calling.

“I’d like to visit this morning,” he announced. “Anthea will bring me. When would be a convenient time?”

*

John had always felt at least two steps behind Mycroft even at the best of times, but lately the gap seemed to have widened every time he came home for a visit. His heightened air of lofty reserve was probably understandable as a defense mechanism under the circumstances, John supposed, but he was too tired and too worried to puzzle out what to do about it, or even whether he should try to do anything at all.

The visit was...strained. Mycroft had many questions about the current progress of Lestrade’s illness and treatment--even more than Sherlock had, although Mycroft’s were more delicately phrased. John tried to answer them as straightforwardly as he could while downplaying the fact that no one really had a bloody clue at this point. “You could, well, see him,” John suggested finally, exhausted by not trying to give anything too worrisome away. “Come on, I’ll take you in.”

Mycroft looked troubled at the suggestion, and temporarily more boyish than he had since he’d arrived home. “I did mean to when I came here,” he said. “I should. I will. I didn’t expect to be this nervous about it.”

“It’s horrible to see someone you love in a hospital bed,” John said matter-of-factly. “He looks ghastly. Probably not as bad as you’re imagining, though. It’s up to you.”

*

 _John_ looked ghastly, Mycroft thought. Very calm but jittery at the same time, and as though he hadn’t slept or eaten in several days. The things he was refusing to say were infinitely more revealing than the things he did. He was quite clearly a man looking into the chasm, and it was difficult to remain furious with him under the circumstances.

He needed to remain furious, though. It seemed much safer than any of the other options.

Mycroft followed John through the door into the intensive care ward and stood there envying his little brother intensely for being able to focus more on the machines than on the man in the bed. Whom he did love, to his utter chagrin. It was ridiculous, senseless, this attachment to a person who should never have been in Mycroft’s life in the first place, who was impossible to explain at Parents’ Day and who behaved utterly inappropriately so much of the time.

Who was now lying motionless and grey, anonymised by illness, grotesquely connected to life by a series of plastic tubes. Inconceivable. Was it really less than a week ago that he’d clung to this body on the back of a motorcycle, heard it sing, scold his brother, laugh at its own bad jokes?

“No, I can’t do this,” he heard himself say.

“All right,” John said kindly, putting an arm around his shoulders in an awkward one-armed hug. “You don’t need to, it’s fine, let’s--”

“Don’t,” Mycroft said, shrugging him off, and then made himself look hard at every detail he could possibly absorb in the curtained-off cubicle before turning round and walking out; he’d study it like a snapshot later and sort all the pertinent information once he’d quit having this emotional reaction. Hormonal, in part, he shouldn’t wonder. It felt about as useless and frustrating as the erections he got while thinking about Carla in the shower.

“How’s Carla, anyway?” John asked him as they headed back down the corridor, and Mycroft started. Of course, John was only attempting lighthearted conversation to defuse a moment of tension, which was extremely typical of him, but it was uncanny the way he appeared prescient at such times. “You should take her somewhere tomorrow, if Nicky’s all right with it...show her the Barbican, maybe, if you can stand to go again? Only no giving security the slip this time.”

Mycroft made a noncommittal sound.

“Or are you two not getting along so famously anymore?” John prodded. “Well, you could all go, then. But that’s too bad.”

“She’s got a boyfriend,” Mycroft said, trying for a crisply unconcerned tone of voice that would cut off all further such lines of discussion. His voice cracked on the “boy” in “boyfriend,” though, and he felt himself go red. And then went redder when he realised he might be thought to be blushing at the idea of Carla and her insufferably annoying suitor--oh, it was ludicrous being fourteen, unbearable.

“That’s rotten,” John said sympathetically. “I’m sorry.”

“When will you get the biopsy results in, were you told?” Mycroft asked him, and John stopped dead in his tracks looking exactly as though he’d been punched in the stomach, swiftly and with full force.

“How did you-- No one told you that.” John’s face had gone nearly as grey as Lestrade’s. He looked as though he might be sick.

“It’s obvious that cancer would be a possibility they’d want to test for,” said Mycroft. “And I can’t think of any other potential diagnosis that would make you this anxious.”

“I think I’d be anxious in any case, given the fact that he can’t breathe without assistance right now. Yes, they did a biopsy yesterday. Mainly to rule it out, but it’s upsetting to think about, you’re quite right. Results should be in tomorrow. Please don’t tell Sherlock. Or...anyone, actually.” John’s voice was thin, his lips were thin, and he didn’t look at Mycroft as they went back into the visitor’s lounge where Anthea was waiting.

“I won’t,” Mycroft said, and then murmured “I’m sorry,” because he’d forgotten John could look this way, hard and cold and broken and determined all at once. Like some sort of steel support that had been battered at and battered at but still had to do its job of standing straight, holding up.

*

At home, Mycroft read medical websites and journal articles all afternoon and into the evening until his head ached and his eyes burned, matching lists of symptoms and case studies against the information he had, growing more and more horrified by the complexity of the human pulmonary system and all the things that could go wrong with it. Sherlock came home from school and stood reading over his shoulder. He pointed out some things Mycroft might not have noticed on his own, but he also leaned on the desk chair and asked too many questions and kept reaching for the mousepad no matter how many times Mycroft brushed his hand away and told him to stop.

“Quit _breathing_ on me,” Mycroft snapped eventually.

“We read this one already!”

“I want to read it again. And if you touch the mouse one more time I will tie your hands to the back of the chair. Stop shaking the desk. Be _still_.”

“I caaaaaan’t,” Sherlock groaned, throwing himself on the floor and rolling around. “I’ve been being still FOREVER.”

“Go and get me something to eat, then. I’m starved.”

"You're always hungry!"

"You're one to talk. Besides, I'm growing."

"You're growing _out_ ," Sherlock jeered, which gave Mycroft all the excuse he needed to give way to the day's pent-up frustrations, get down off his chair, and put an elbow into his brother’s stomach. He easily evaded Sherlock's skinny-armed attempts at martial arts, pinned him, and then simply sat on him while he struggled and yelled.

A knock at the door made them both freeze. “Mum says dinnertime,” Carla called through, and then opened the door enough to look inside. “Oh. I didn’t think you were the rough and tumble sort, Mycroft. Well, when you’re done playing...”

Sherlock’s face was purple, either from his efforts to free himself or from outrage. “We are NOT PLAYING! We were doing very important research until he started trying to kill me FOR BEING RIGHT and you are really really heavy Mycroft GET OFF NOW.”

Mycroft got up, as gracefully as he could manage, and tucked in his shirt. “Little brothers,” he explained to Carla. “They occasionally require subduing by main force.”

“Oh, I know. I’m just surprised--I thought you had a philosophy? That thing you said once. About how there are almost always ways to control people that don’t require hands-on violence?”

“Yes, well.” Mycroft fished a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at his temples with it, hoping he wasn’t as red-faced as he felt. “Sherlock is an exception to most rules.”

“You didn’t use to let him get to you.” Carla was smiling slightly. “You’ve changed.”

Sherlock was now sitting up on the floor looking from one to the other of them and back like John when he watched tennis, only more predatorily. “He’s changed a LOT. He’s going through _puberty_.”

“Do you want my assistance with this research project of yours?” Mycroft asked him calmly. “Or not?”

“You HAVE to help!”

“I don’t, actually.”

“Anyway, dinner?” Carla reminded them. “Mum made carbonara. She says she’s channeling her stress. Speaking of which, I really wish you wouldn’t argue and fight so much right now, guys. We’re worried about Uncle Orio even if you aren’t. He’s been Mum’s brother and my uncle a lot longer than he’s been your...whatever...but you still might try being a bit more civilised, under the circumstances.”

She left, closing the door behind her. Sherlock lunged up, purple-faced again in his need to refute and defend, but Mycroft barred his way.

“It’s immaterial what she says or thinks.”

“She’s WRONG!”

“She’s not wrong about you being uncivilised. It’s a distraction, Sherlock. An annoying and unnecessary distraction. I’d like to go and eat dinner. Will you behave yourself now, please?”

“Yes,” Sherlock said sulkily. “I’m not going to eat, though. I want to read some more.”

“You love carbonara. Besides, your brain can’t function efficiently without fuel.”

“I like Lestrade’s carbonara,” Sherlock said. “Not anyone else’s. And my brain works better when I’m hungry. I’m going to look at some of John’s medical books. Tell Carla he’s NOT my whatever, he’s my DI, and she’s stupid.”

“I’m not going to tell her she’s stupid.”

“Well she IS. Puberty makes everyone stupid, that’s what I think.”

“I really don’t have to help you, you know,” Mycroft warned him.

“But you will,” Sherlock said. “Don’t stuff yourself. It’ll make you sleepy and we still have a lot of reading to do.”

 _It can wait till tomorrow,_ Mycroft wanted to tell him. _It might all be wasted work, if--_ But he felt guilty even thinking it. 

Hunger won out. He followed Carla down to dinner.

*

John was talking with Sally in the visitors’ lounge the following afternoon when one of the ICU doctors (his least favourite, he’d decided privately, the one with the terrible thin moustache) came out and asked for a word. Good thing that Sally had been there to distract him, John thought dizzily, following the doctor into the private consultation room with his head still half full of polite chat about NSY and its denizens. Although he’d still have to go back out and speak to her after this, and--

“The biopsy’s come back negative, so we’ll need to begin with some more diagnostics,” the doctor said, sounding almost inconvenienced by the idea. “Another chest CT as soon as possible to see if there’s been any progression, and then a series of lung function tests--we’ll need to lower the sedative dosage again, but then we can probably schedule those for tomorrow morning.”

He talked on about what the lung function tests would involve, and John nodded automatically for a bit and then interrupted him to say “Hang on, hang on. You’ve just-- Negative. You’ve just told me my fiancé _doesn’t have lung cancer_ , yes?”

“The biopsy was negative,” the doctor repeated, with an impatient sort of strained smile. “Good news. But--”

“No, sorry, I just need a minute for that,” John said. Then, “All right. Go on.”

*

He was selfishly, guiltily glad to have Lestrade off the sedatives again--it was awful for him to have to wake up to this again, no doubt, but John hadn’t realised till now that he’d got so used to not having to go through things all on his own anymore. 

Which was frightening, if he thought about it. He decided not to.

“Do you want the long list of people who’ve told me to give you their love, get well soon, hang in there, et cetera, or the edited version?” he asked, when Lestrade had started to open his eyes more than a sliver again. He probably wasn’t fully conscious yet, but it might be nice to wake up to the names of them all, John thought. “Mrs. H, Mrs. Hudson, Anthea, Sally--actually I’m to tell you to get off your arse and get back on the job before they drown in paperwork and bodies over there; that’s not just from Sally, that’s from your entire department. They’ve chipped in and sent you a box of very rude chocolates as well. I’m re-gifting them to Mrs. Hudson. Where was I. Nicky, Mark, Carla, Paul. Nicky’s been up to see you every day. It’s Thursday, by the way. She’s thinking of taking the boys home with them for the weekend--I forgot it was a holiday. Haven’t told the boys yet. Oh, and the boys, obviously, on the list. They’ve been by too. Just the once.”

Lestrade murmured something into the oxygen mask, and John reached over and unstrapped it and gave him water to sip. 

“Boys were here?”

“One at a time, yeah.”

“God, I’m not keen on that.” Lestrade gave a wheezing gasp, and John put the mask up to his face again for a few moments. 

“Can you hold onto it? We can talk a bit, but it’s going to be tough on you, I’m afraid--you’re used to the extra oxygen so you’ll be very short of breath. Better keep it brief.”

Lestrade breathed into the mask a few times, then took it down. “How are the boys?”

“Well,” John said. “A bit worried. I think Sherlock’s mainly furious that he missed the bronchoscopy.”

“Yeah, that was a thing.” Lestrade held up the mask again, breathed, took it down. “Did they find anything out?” 

“They ruled out lung cancer,” John told him, and Lestrade gave a harsh laugh that turned into dry coughing.

“Lovely,” he said when he could speak again, then “Oh. God. You’re not joking. They actually thought that. _You_ actually--”

“Not for a minute,” John said. “All right, maybe for one minute. Careful,” he added, glancing at the numbers on the monitor, and guided Lestrade’s hand holding the oxygen mask back up to his face. “It’s all right, love. I didn’t want to say anything, but...anyway. It’s not. Thank fucking god.”

“Christ,” Lestrade said, still behind the mask but clearly enough, and he kept his eyes shut for a bit. 

“So now they want to do a lot of things that involve you breathing into various tubes, mainly,” John went on, only a little unsteadily. “Annoying but not painful. Are you in pain, though? They’ve been keeping you under, you know, but you’re still on a lot of-- Do you need anything?”

“Need to go home.” Lestrade let the mask drop again, eyes half open, glassy, vague. “Did they get the bloody x-ray yet?”

John looked reflexively at the monitor again. “You need to keep that on, I think,” he said. “Probably enough talking for now. Too much by half. What day did I say it was, do you remember?”

“No. You said they’d let us see Sal. Before we left, if she’s not--”

“She’s fine,” John said quickly. “Definitely enough talking. Breathe. Rest. I’ll be right here.”

*

 _Negative,_ the text message said. _Call soon. xxJ_

 _Thank you,_ Mycroft texted back. He refrained from pointing out to John that the second part of his message would have been more precise and less useless with the addition of either the word “please” or the word “will.” People were irrational at such times. Certainly it was irrational of Mycroft himself to take out his mobile and reread the message again half a dozen times over the next hour. 

“Why do you keep looking at your phone?” Sherlock demanded.

“School-related,” Mycroft said, putting it away. 

Sherlock narrowed his eyes at him. “Lying.”

Mycroft smiled, as infuriatingly as possible.

“It’s probably _puberty_ -related,” Sherlock decided. “Yuck. Boring. Why aren’t you researching?”

“I can’t move forward in the absence of an ability to test any of my theories,” Mycroft said. “Nor in the absence of new data. Do you have any idea how many respiratory ailments there are that initially present with pneumonia-like symptoms? Too many. It’s too soon, Sherlock. But at least I’ve got a decent base of knowledge at present, and when we find out more--”

“Let’s find out more NOW, then! Call John. Or I will. He hasn’t answered about ninety of my questions yet.”

“I’ve tried. He doesn’t pick up. Sometimes it’s actually necessary to wait. Don’t try the impatient two-year-old business with me. John and Lestrade and half the Internet may find it charming and adorable, but I do not.”

Sherlock sulked.

“And don’t sulk. Find something to do. What’s Paul up to?”

“Nintendo,” Sherlock sighed. “It’s Easter in three days,” he added. “And John’s birthday.”

“That’s unfortunate, but immaterial, I’m afraid.”

“Nicky wants to take us home with them while I’m on my holidays.”

“What?” That broke Mycroft’s calm. “She told you that?”

“I heard her talking to John this morning. But we shouldn’t go. We won’t be able to visit Lestrade and John at the hospital and it’ll be really hard to figure out what’s wrong with him from that far away. I’m not going.”

“You will if John wants you to. You don’t want to make things difficult for him right now.”

“But we _shouldn’t go_ ,” Sherlock repeated, anxiously. “You don’t want to, do you? We can just stay here on our own.”

Mycroft’s mind was racing again. “Let me think,” he said. “I’m going to take the dogs for a walk.” His brain kept shoving ridiculous thoughts at him like _escape all this for a few days at least_ and _need to get away from Carla before she drives me mad_ and _Nicky’s cooking is much better than mine_ , and he hoped he’d be more clear-headed in the open air. He almost never missed the moors, but he missed them today. Maybe Sherlock was right and adolescence (he hated the p-word) did make people a bit more stupid.

Or, anyway, more distracted.

In any case, _negative_ was still good. He pulled out his phone to look at the glow of that message again for a moment, but it didn’t strike as much of a spark this time; he knew that the situation was still bad.

*

When Mycroft returned to the house, still out of sorts and undecided, Sherlock pelted past him going down the stairs that led to their flat as he was trudging up. “I’ve sorted it,” he called out in passing. “The thing we were talking about. Probably maybe. Tell you later!”

“Where are you going?” The stairs and front hall were a confusion of barking and security staff changeover, and Mycroft had dog leashes cutting into his wrists as he tried to hold Phobos and Deimos until he could get them up to the landing and wipe their feet. Nicky minded about mud a lot more than John did.

“Mrs. Hudson’s. We’re going to make brownies! She was at the hospital this morning and she says John is looking thin. I’m going to eat some of them too because I always look thin. You can have ONE. See you at dinner!”

Mycroft shook his head, went on up the stairs, wiped down the dogs, and decided to just enjoy the relative quiet in the flat for as long as possible. He tried phoning John again, and still didn’t get through, but John called him back about an hour later. 

“I got your text,” Mycroft told him. “You must be relieved.”

“Oh, relieved...well, yes,” John said, sounding very tired and distracted and not relieved at all. “I mean...yes. Obviously.”

“Could I bring Sherlock to visit again?”

John hesitated.

“He’d like to see you, if nothing else,” Mycroft prodded. “As would I.”

“I know...oh, Mycroft. I’m sorry. Yes, of course, you should come. How are things there?”

It might have been amusing under other circumstances, Mycroft thought, the way you could practically hear both of them deciding how much to tell each other. “Fine,” he said finally.

“Oh, God. What’s your brother doing? Put him on.”

“He’s baking with Mrs. Hudson. Really, we’re fine. We’d like not to go with Nicky when she leaves.”

“Who told-- No, of course you’d know; you absorb thought waves through the air, don’t you? I can’t...Mycroft. I know this sounds ridiculous to you because you’re all-knowing and impervious, but the only reason I’m able to be here is that I know you’ve got a responsible adult looking after you--”

Mycroft felt anything but all-knowing and impervious. “I don’t--” he started, but John kept going.

“And I know you’re responsible, but there are things like laundry, and meals at regular hours, and making sure Sherlock doesn’t take it into his head to try and bake exploding biscuits, or...I don’t know, climb onto the roof at three in the morning to look for pigeons, or anything. Which I can’t ask of just anyone--I can’t even ask it of Nicky, to be honest, but she’s offered--it’s difficult to explain, but it’s not only that it’s my job, it’s--Jesus Christ, there’s another call coming through on the other line; it’s your mother.”

“My _mother_?” Mycroft’s voice squeaked again.

“Yes, of course, why not? She absorbs thought waves, too. Obviously. I’ve got to take it. I’m probably fired. No, I never said that, I’m sure it’s fine--call you back in two minutes, I promise.”

He hung up, leaving Mycroft to wait, biting his nails. He’d only ever known John to get quieter and steelier under stress before, but everyone must have a breaking point. His _mother_. She’d called once already, when Lestrade went into hospital, but calling up again, so soon? She’d have to be mad to fire John. Then again, his mother was an unknown quantity, an unpredictable element, and none of the usual laws seemed to have applied in Mycroft’s life for some time now. When the phone vibrated in his hand again, he jumped.

“Everything all right?” he asked John.

“Yes, fine--I’m sorry. It’s fine. And you won’t have to go to Nicky’s. Your mother’s decided to come and stay for a bit. She’ll be with you in the morning.”

*

Coming home from the hospital after visiting that evening was the most depressing thing yet, Mycroft decided. They’d all gone, the whole pack of them, which was incredibly embarrassing. Nicky and Carla had cried a lot. Paul, forcibly unplugged from his game system, tried to enlist Sherlock to clown around and get into trouble, but Sherlock was only in the mood to climb John, cling onto him like a limpet, and attempt to force-feed him brownies. He wasn’t very successful at the last, Mycroft noticed, even though they’d been very good brownies. John hadn’t made him quit climbing and clinging, however; he’d let Sherlock go around attached to him for the entire visit. This meant that it was impossible for Mycroft to question him very much about Lestrade’s current condition and whether there’d been any new test results or different medications--there were too many things John wouldn’t say in front of Sherlock. 

Nicky and Carla spent the most time at Lestrade’s bedside, since they’d be away for at least the next few days. Lestrade was awake now, apparently, but found it difficult and exhausting to talk and was also semi-confused. “He’s not delirious,” John explained tiredly to Mycroft over Sherlock’s shoulder. “It’s not the fever--they’re controlling that with meds. And he’s lucid some of the time, he just...slips, now and then.”

“Cerebral hypoxia,” Mycroft murmurmed, making a mental note to add it to his spreadsheet as soon as he was home.

"Right, exactly."

"Even with supplemental oxygen? That's a bad sign."

"It's not fantastic," John said, giving Mycroft a hard look and then glancing down significantly at Sherlock, who was still wrapped in a stranglehold around his neck. "Anyway. If you go in to see him--"

"I won't, tonight, I think," said Mycroft. "If it's as tiring for him as you say, and he's already had Nicky and Carla weeping at him."

"All right," John said. "Well, I'll take Sherlock in for a minute to say hello, anyway." He got up, still holding Sherlock, and pressed Mycroft on the shoulder in an understanding sort of way, which Mycroft thoroughly resented. 

"You'll give him my love, won't you, Sherlock?" Mycroft said, raising his eyebrows and giving his little brother a glare: _collect as much data as you can._ Sherlock nodded. 

On the way home in the car, everyone had been silent. Including Sherlock. It was disconcerting.

"I don't want to talk right now," he told Mycroft when they'd got back to the flat and were alone again. Sherlock had gone straight upstairs, put on pyjamas, and made another nest in Mycroft's bed. He was holding Spider, which he'd fetched from John and Lestrade's room. 

"I'm surprised you didn't bring that to John the first day," Mycroft said.

"I wanted to, but John said he'd have nowhere safe to keep it and it can't go in Lestrade's bed right now because it's not sterile. I said I don't want to TALK, Mycroft."

"That's fine, but I need the data you gathered before you forget it. All the numbers, and if anything was different from the last time. You got a good look at his chart and anything written on the IV bags, I hope. Also, did you notice if--"

"NO. I didn't notice anything." Sherlock wrapped himself more tightly around Spider, turned his back, and feigned sleep.

Mycroft, hardened veteran of many battles in which Sherlock's silence was both fortress and weapon, fought the impulse to shake him. He lay down next to him instead, once he'd got his temper back under control.

"I can't believe you emailed Mummy," he said. "I wouldn't have thought of that, I admit. Rather dangerous, though--she's quite capable of deciding to just take us back with her to wherever she needs to be right now. We'll see, I suppose. But it hardly matters to you if you've decided to give up on figuring out what's making Lestrade ill. You thought it would be a good game, and now you're bored with it. I see."

Sherlock exploded up out of the bed, flung himself at the desk, and began scribbling furiously on a scrap of paper. Mycroft came and looked over his shoulder. All the information was there, exhaustively if messily notated. Sherlock threw down the pen when he'd finished and then threw the paper at Mycroft. 

"He looked right at me and didn't even SEE me," Sherlock said. "And he called John 'Bryan' and John looked like he did that time after he fought off the bad guys who broke into the flat and had to get stitches in his head. I'm not going anywhere with Mummy and I'm not talking about it and I STILL HATE YOU." 

He disappeared into his nest, and this time Mycroft left him alone.

*

At some point in the middle of the night, John decided that he would be perfectly able to cope with all this if he could take a short break and go and shoot some things for a while. He fantasised about it in vivid detail, even going so far as to imagine a scenario in which it could semi-plausibly take place: there was an off-site handgun range that the Yard used for special forces training, he knew. He could call in favours...get permission somehow (his mind blurred the details)...slip away, get a cab, don the earmuffs and protective glasses. In his imagination he could feel each of his fingers moulding around the grip of the weapon in his hand with an almost unbearable sense of rightness. That comforting, solid, familiar weight. The satisfying shock of pulling off round after round after round, watching the bullets plant themselves effortlessly into the targets where they belonged. His mind would go quiet, he knew, his body would remember how to relax--he'd be able to face anything after a half-hour of that. An hour at most.

The night shift nurse touched his shoulder, and he spent the next ten minutes apologising to her in profuse whispers and helping her clean up the jug of spilled water and apologising some more.

"Entirely my fault, didn't mean to creep up on you, love," she said for about the fifth time, and John wondered briefly what she’d been told about him. The treatment he got from the staff here was widely varied. No one was openly hostile, which he almost regretted--it’d be a relief to have a clear and present focus for his rage, much like the paper targets he’d just been blissfully shredding in his fantasy. 

This was one of the sympathetic ones, though. “What you need is a proper lie-down,” she told him. “I’m sure there’s a bed free. I can come and fetch you if he gets agitated again.”

John looked down at Lestrade, who was sleeping. Actually sleeping--his face didn’t look as slack as it did when he was under sedation. He was tense around the eyebrows, though, in a way that made John wonder if he were having nightmares in there. “In a bit, yeah, thanks,” he promised the nurse.

Still she lingered. “Was that your boy in with you, earlier?” she asked. “I was just coming on my shift and saw you carrying him out.”

“Mm,” John said, acknowledging, unprepared to launch into the usual qualifiers and explanations. He’d given all that up for the most part, actually; Sherlock was his now, surely, as much as anyone’s. Theirs.

“Lovely curls on him,” the nurse said. “How old? Six, seven?” She clucked. “Poor little thing.”

John didn’t disagree. He’d put Sherlock into a terrible position. Mrs. Holmes would be well within her rights to remove them, even if it would be disastrous. For Mycroft, too, he thought, although he’d show it less at first. 

He could be on the verge of losing absolutely everything again.

He leaned over to try and smooth a crease between Lestrade’s eyebrows with his thumb and then retreated back to the firing range inside his head again.

*

Lestrade wasn’t having a nightmare. He was peaking on painkillers at the moment, in fact, and having an excellent dream about John, John sneaking in through the window of his room in the house where he’d lived as a kid (only miraculously free of younger siblings for once). Luckily in dream logic they were both able to be about seventeen at the same time--no, John must have been a bit older, because he was teaching Lestrade some absolutely scandalous things he said he’d learned in the Army. Warm smooth skin, a lot of giggling, no fear of getting caught. Lestrade arched up under John’s hands, kissing, blissful, and was incredibly glad they’d found each other so soon because now they’d have all the early parts of their lives together, too. John looked troubled and didn’t think it would work, but he was wrong, clearly, for once he was in the wrong.

He woke to find John twenty years older with his face looking impossibly lined and exhausted (but no less lovely), nodding and snoring slightly in a chair next to his hospital bed. Lestrade wanted to wake him and tell him about the dream, make him smile, but the damn mask was too heavy and John looked as though he probably needed the sleep. Good to see John asleep for once, actually. He looked far too worried when he was awake, even though he tried not to.

So Lestrade shut his eyes again and tried to get back into the dream-world again, but he’d lost it, of course, and had to go back to one of the other ones instead. Mainly, he dreamt about work. Paperwork upon paperwork, case files piled in precarious stacks and towers, dusty evidence rooms requiring painstaking excavation. It wasn’t pleasant, but it could have been a lot worse. 

The dust rose and billowed. That was worse. It was getting harder and harder to breathe.


	3. Chapter 3

“What’s she like, then?” asked Carla, while they were out walking the dogs the next morning, and Mycroft didn’t need her to clarify who she meant. “My mum’s terrified to meet her. I don’t think we really need to leave anything like as early as she says we do to miss the traffic.”

“She’s generally very quiet, in domestic settings,” Mycroft told her. “It tends to alarm people. It’s probably best if your family minimises contact with her, at least for now. Your mother will talk too much to overcompensate and then feel awkward.”

“So she’s more like you, not Sherlock,” Carla said, side-eyeing him.

“No one is like Sherlock.”

“But are you nervous to see her? I mean...do you _like_ spending time with her?”

“It’s complicated,” Mycroft said, and then, sensing that this wasn’t enough, offered, “I admire her.”

Carla shook her head at him, sighed, and pulled out her mobile to begin texting again. Mycroft had lost his status as weird-interesting with her and moved into weird-weird, he suspected, and now he was left to contemplate his mother’s impending arrival in silence. 

He wasn’t afraid of his mother. He’d even had some highly interesting talks with her during her last few visits. But he didn’t, it was true, particularly like spending time with her. It had an unsettling effect on the entire household. This was unfair, Mycroft was aware, which made him guilty, which made him like her visits even less. He understood her position perfectly, now that he was older; it was an impossible position, and he sympathised. 

Still. She had chosen a life which didn’t particularly include him. It made things rather strained at times when they were face to face.

And Sherlock was going to be even more of a wreck, with--

And if she insisted on taking them away with her--

He hadn’t slept well the night before, and his thoughts were disjointed. He was going to carve out another three hours for study this afternoon no matter what. Something mindless and equation-based. Calculus, physics.

*

Nicky had filled the refrigerator and cupboards with food, cleaned all the floors and worktops to an aggressive state of shine, washed and ironed every stitch of clothing that wasn’t on someone’s body, and was now fretting over Sherlock’s Easter eggs. “I’d hide them before I left, but he’d have them all found in five minutes,” she told Mycroft. “And if I leave them for you to do, you’ll hide them too well and drive him mad.”

“Give them to Anthea,” Mycroft suggested. “Not that you need to be worrying about a spoilt child’s chocolate supply right now. Thank you very much for everything. You’ll be back soon, I hope.”

“I hope,” Nicky said. “I’ve got to look in on Mum, at least for a day, I still haven’t decided what to tell her--and Paul has football camp all next week, but I can leave him with Mark, and you know I’ll be down as fast as I can get here if...if there’s any change.”

Mycroft couldn’t summon up anything safely comforting to say, so he decided to take refuge in the general low expectations for fourteen-year-old social skills and say very little. 

Sherlock had disappeared again, so that was the rest of the morning, and by the time he was found (at the back of the wardrobe in John and Lestrade’s room, buried under bags of summer clothes) their mother was being dropped off by her car at the front door, and there were explanations, introductions, fuss. Nicky defied Mycroft’s expectations by _not_ overcompensating with chatter. Instead she took Sherlock into his room and had a talk with him, from which he emerged still sulky but with his face freshly washed and a clean shirt on. 

After the usual awkward rounds of hugging and hand-shaking and repetitious platitudes, Nicky and her family finally departed, leaving three Holmeses unwilling to make eye contact. Carla had kissed Mycroft on the cheek, and he was blushing furiously. Sherlock was just furious.

“I won’t tell you all the things that needed to happen so that I could be here right now,” their mother told Sherlock. “You might be able to imagine--no, I doubt you can imagine most of them, in fact. Still. You said that you needed me here, which you’ve never done before, so I came.”

“I don’t care.” No one, _no_ one, ever looked or sounded more sullen than Sherlock in a strop. “You SHOULD come. You’re our mother. And I’m not going anywhere with you!”

“Sherlock!” Mycroft said, but Mummy put a hand out to him. 

“You’re contradicting yourself,” she told her younger son. “And I don’t believe I asked you to go anywhere with me. I’ve only just arrived. How is your D.I.? No improvement, I presume. What’s being done for him, do you know any details?”

*

_Any updates? --MH_

_Nothing major. L sleeping. How’s S? How’s your mum? How is S w your mum?_

_Please call us when convenient. --MH_

_Call us NOW. --SH_

Sherlock answered the phone when John called, a minute and a half later. “I found a dead mouse in the park!” he greeted him. "The dogs found it first, but I found them finding it. I'm going to see if I can dissolve all the fur and skin and guts off it and make it into a skeleton. Will you tell Mycroft I don't have to throw it away?”

"I'm surprised the dogs didn't eat it."

"They did, but only a little. I have it in cling film in the freezer right now and it isn't dripping on anything. PLEASE will you tell him?"

"I think you should put it in a container as well. Something with a tight lid. And then wash your hands with lots of soap. No dissolving anything until I get home to help. How's your mother?"

"Boring," said Sherlock. "On her laptop. As usual. She says she wants to talk to you, though. Here's Mycroft first. Mycroft, he says I can keep it!"

"It's next to our food," Mycroft came on to report. "You didn't really? It's extremely unsanitary. I'm sorry to bother you with this. I didn't ask you to call about a dead mouse, in fact; we'll deal with it."

"I don't mind," John said. "And it should be all right if it's stored properly, but I won't blame you if it disappears under mysterious circumstances. You might get more peace if it doesn't, though. Why did you want me to call? Not that you need a reason.”

“Mummy wants to speak with you. And I wanted to ask you what you meant by ‘nothing major.’”

“I preferred the dead mouse questions,” John sighed. “No, it’s all right, it’s...Lestrade had some pulmonary function tests--I told you a bit about them yesterday--”

“Did the numbers come back? What are they?”

“Well, they’re low. Not critical, but really lower than they like to see. There’s been talk of putting him on endotracheal ventilation if he doesn’t improve soon--a breathing tube, you know.”

There was a pause on the other end before Mycroft said, “That sounds a bit dire.”

“I know. But it might help.” Help keep him alive until they could fucking figure out what was wrong with him, John thought, but didn’t say. “Anyway. Your mum? Is she free?”

Mrs. Holmes had as little use for conversational niceties as her sons did. “Are you satisfied with the level of care that Detective Inspector Lestrade is receiving? I’m prepared to arrange for alternatives.”

“Thank you,” John said. “That’s generous of you. I don’t know. I hope...I hope it won’t be necessary. I’ll keep it in mind.”

“You’d know better than I would, obviously."

"Obviously," John repeated, taking in and interpreting the tone of her voice. "Oh. You think I've mismanaged this? You do. God."

"I think you have a marked tendency to follow the status quo and hope for the best. You're capable of insight, but it requires a catalyst. Steadfast and stoic may not be what's required in this situation. It certainly didn't help keep you out of it."

John couldn’t come up with a single word in response before she disconnected the call.

*

Mycroft, who'd been standing there for the entire brief conversation, watched his mother hang up and hand his mobile back to him calmly. She started to return to her laptop, but paused when she saw the look on her son's face. “Anger is much more productive than despondency,” she told him. “It doesn’t always pay to be kind.”

“I know,” he said. “Just...” He was picturing John’s steel-barrier look. You could temper steel, but you could also stress it until it simply snapped. “Do you think those things you said to him are true?”

She looked out the window, and tucked a foot up beneath her. She'd changed into dark jeans shortly after her arrival, but she never looked comfortable in them. “They’re not the _only_ things I think are true,” she said finally. “I was luckier than I knew the day I decided to hire John Watson. He's been extraordinarily good for Sherlock.”

“They both have,” Mycroft said.

“Yes.” Her mobile’s text message alert went off, and she picked it up and began typing a response. “And for you,” she added, not looking up.

“I didn't need a caregiver.”

“No, you never did.”

She didn't elaborate, and Mycroft didn't pursue. He went off to follow up on the mouse situation and then do some research into endotracheal ventilation procedures and risks.

*

John didn’t have the chance to dwell on his employer’s assessment of his abilities right away. Lestrade woke again, asking for Sherlock’s whereabouts, the score of the match, and water. Semi-confused, John decided. It didn’t upset him, particularly, as long as Lestrade wasn’t upset--and when he was, it was easy enough to reassure him. He worried about Lestrade waking up confused and not finding John there, though, so it was more difficult than ever to step away.

“Sherlock’s safe at home, I haven’t the foggiest which match you mean or what any score of anything is right now, and there’s water right here,” he said. He kept a glass with a straw close by at all times; the IV was keeping Lestrade hydrated, but the oxygen mask made his mouth dry, he kept complaining.

Lestrade choked on the first sip, though. And the second. “Can’t swallow,” he said, pushing the glass away. 

“Sure?” John asked, frowning. “Here, try one more time.”

Lestrade choked again and began to cough.

“All right--sorry, sorry, my fault. It’s probably a side-effect of something they’re giving you, don’t worry.”

“Getting worse,” Lestrade said, looking less confused now and more panicky.

“I know, and I’ve warned you to stop that,” John said, putting the oxygen mask back on him. “You never bloody listen. Sherlock found a mouse this morning, by the way, I’ve just been informed. Dead. Half eaten by the dogs. He’s got it in the freezer now. I think Mycroft’s going to kill him before the holidays are half over; what are the odds on that, do you suppose?”

Lestrade was right; he wasn’t only not getting better, he was getting worse, and nothing was being done. Mrs. Holmes had had a point. John had all the sympathy in the world for beleaguered medical staff, and he knew tests were expensive and took time, but the stakes were too high for him to continue to remain polite. If he needed to be the obnoxiously demanding next of kin in order to get anyone to pay attention, he should do it.

Then again, if he made himself _too_ obnoxious he’d draw the wrong sort of attention, which could be counter-productive. And he kept second-guessing himself. He’d never been much of a pathologist. He’d never had to be, in the Army-- _your legs have been blown off below the knee_ or _the back of your skull’s been perforated by shrapnel_ didn’t take a master diagnostician. He’d dealt with infectious diseases on occasion, but the more complicated cases had been transferred off-base pretty quickly.

If he advocated for aggressive treatments ahead of any definite diagnosis now, would he just be overcompensating for his failure in letting them wind up here in the first place? 

He was too tired to think straight, John knew. He wanted very badly to make space next to Lestrade in the hospital bed, curl himself around the warmth of him, and sleep for ten hours before deciding what the best approach might be. 

*

Pencil-thin-moustache Doctor had gone off for the long weekend, it appeared, so it was a new doctor who came round soon after that to examine Lestrade and to review his case file and treatment options with John. She introduced herself to Lestrade first, although he was mostly out of it again and only nodded, eyes half open.

"He's been complaining of dysphagia," John told her, because he'd found that it didn't hurt to remind them that he spoke their language, so long as he didn't overdo it. He liked the look of this one so far, despite the fact that she seemed not long out of medical school, because she appeared to actually listen when he spoke and take it into account, rather than just nodding and going on with whatever she’d been planning to say. "And chest pain, still--the diamorphine isn't quite doing the job at the current dosage."

She made a note of it, felt Lestrade’s throat and asked him to swallow, then listened to his chest, looking increasingly confused and concerned. "I know they did a TB test when he first came in, but I'd almost like to order a second one," she said, hanging the stethoscope round her neck. "On his intake questionnaire you ticked that he has visited prisons in the past six months?"

"Yeah, he's a D.I. in the Met, he's all over everywhere, he's been exposed to probably roughly...everything in the city," John said, with familiar despair. "No one will order tests for anything, there's too many possibilities and they've wanted to rule out anything smoking-related as the most obvious."

“The odds are greatly in favour of this being a viral illness that’s settled into an antibiotic-resistant infection,” the doctor pointed out.

John hesitated, then decided to say it. "I want you to consider the possibility that it's not. Now, not after you've done a second TB screen or tried another antibiotic."

He was speaking in a modified version of what he thought of as his command voice, he realised. Risky. Some people responded to it automatically, but it pissed others right off.

"Then let's talk," the young doctor said, pulling up a chair. "Because exposure to 'everything in the city' is a bit broad."

*

_Radio silence makes me nervous, what’s going on over there_

_I was waiting for you to text. Sherlock has Mummy playing Scrabble. She won’t do Cluedo with him after the last time. --MH_

_Smart of her. We are ok here, not great. Hanging in. Met w new dr who seems more proactive than rest of the bunch we’ve had so that is good I think_

_Proactive is an annoying and nearly meaningless buzzword. --MH_

_Ok well shes 1st dr here willing to discuss why antibiotics aren’t working - whatever word means that._

_Are they considering environmental causes at this point? --MH_

Mycroft’s phone rang a minute later. “How did you know that?” John asked. “Yes, actually, it’s been brought up as a possibility. I’m meant to be making a list of any toxic agents or inhalants Lestrade might feasibly have come into contact with at any time in the past sixty days--it’s driving me mad.”

“I’ve got a partial one,” Mycroft confessed. “Very partial, I’m afraid, but I’m reasonably certain there isn’t anything in the household that correlates with his symptoms even if he’d ingested it directly. Work’s going to be a lot more difficult, obviously.”

“Jesus, you’ve actually thought about this.”

“Of course I have. What did you think?”

“I haven’t been able to think in days. I’m sorry. Yes, of course you would. Thank you. Anything you want to forward to me could be helpful, honestly. And...I don’t want to get Sherlock too worked up, but you might, if you can find a way to ask him if he remembers anything...Lestrade tells him so much about his cases, all this stuff even I don’t understand or have any attention span for, and he absorbs it like I don’t know what--”

“I’ll ask him.” It wouldn’t be politic, Mycroft was well aware, to let John know that he’d been grilling Sherlock on the subject since approximately two days after Lestrade had fallen ill. It was mostly useless, tedious detail, all mixed up in Sherlock’s brain with a long recurring bedtime story Lestrade had apparently been telling him that involved zombie pirates solving crimes committed by mutant humanoid alligators in the Underground tunnels.

“Can I speak to him now, actually? If you can decently interrupt the Scrabble game. I’d just like to say goodnight. I’m glad he’s getting on with your mum.”

“I’ll see. Do you want to speak to her as well?”

“Not particularly, no.”

The interplay between his mother and John might be one of the more fascinatingly complex things he’d ever witnessed, Mycroft thought, as he went to fetch Sherlock. It was a pity his personal involvement impaired his ability to observe it all clear-headedly. 

*

“Are you SURE it’s not a plague he caught from a dead body?” Sherlock asked the next morning, looking over Mycroft’s spreadsheets and lists. 

“I’m not sure of anything much at all,” Mycroft said. “But I’m fairly confident that people at his work would know if they’d dealt with a cadaver that had been contaminated with anything. For one thing, other people would probably have become sick from it, too.”

“Maybe they did!” Sherlock said, far too hopefully. 

Mycroft thought about it. “I suppose it’s possible. If they’re less ill than Lestrade they might not have reported it yet.” He didn’t believe it for a moment, but it was worth it to play along and watch Sherlock’s eyes grow huge with excitement for the first time in days.

“I’m calling Molly _right now_!”

“No, you’re not. It’s Saturday morning. You can email her. Let me read it before you send it, though.”

_Hello Molly this is Sherlock and I need to know if you’ve had any corpses from the police lately that could have had diseases in them that people could catch, and are you ill or is anyone else who works at the morgue ill with a bad cough right now. It’s very important so please answer this immediately even if you’re on holiday._

_From,  
Sherlock_

_ps I hope you have a good Easter  
pps I really want to come and visit you again, no one ever lets me but maybe I can get Lestrade to say yes when he gets better_

Mycroft looked up pneumonic plague on his phone while Sherlock hovered over the laptop and hit the refresh button on his email inbox approximately four times a minute waiting for Molly’s reply. “I think Lestrade would be dead by now if that’s what he had,” he told Sherlock. “Or coughing up lots of blood. The inbox automatically shows you when there’s any new messages, you know--you don’t have to keep punching at it. You’ll break the keys.”

“Sometimes it’s slow and doesn’t tell you right away,” Sherlock insisted, F5-ing. 

“Do something else while you wait. Molly’s probably still asleep.”

“It is REALLY LATE!” Sherlock said. “Nearly eight! Can I use your phone to text John, then?”

Mycroft handed it to him and went downstairs in search of breakfast. When Sherlock returned the phone, it had the following exchange on the screen:

_John I have a question for you, is Lestrade coughing up lots of blood? --SH_

_Good morning to you too. No blood just regular lung goo. What are yr plans for today?_

_Stay at home while everyone does boring things and is boring. --SH_

_Sorry to hear. I really miss you. L does 2._

_I know you say that every time. --SH_

_Still true._

_I KNOW goodbye for now. --SH_

Mycroft sighed when he read it. “Sherlock, you do realise that John is having an incredibly difficult time right now?”

“I know.” Sherlock took a slice of toast from Mycroft’s plate. “That’s why we have to work really hard today at figuring this out. There isn’t time to be polite and say boring things that everyone already knows. Molly wrote back to me and said no one at the morgue is ill. Where’s Mummy?”

“She went out jogging with Anthea. She left a note.”

“Good, because I think we should try to go to Lestrade’s office and talk to people there. Email takes too long.”

Mycroft laughed. “I can’t even begin to explain to you all the things that are preposterous about that idea. You’re proposing to sneak out of the house, walk into New Scotland Yard, somehow get in past security, and...what?”

“Find out about cases Lestrade has been on that might have made him ill. You’ll be with me so it won’t be sneaking. You’re old enough to be in charge. People know me there--I bet I could get loads of them to talk to me before they decide we shouldn’t be there and make us leave.”

“You’re _seven_.”

“So? Maybe they’ll say stuff they think I won’t understand because I’m too little. Or I can cry and then get into files when they go to get me a biscuit. It’s a good idea! Someone needs to do SOMETHING.”

He was on the verge of tears again, an angry four-foot scrap of clenched fists and toast crumbs and wild uncombed hair. 

“It’s an interesting idea,” Mycroft said finally. “Completely ill-advised, but interesting, I grant you. If I were to agree to anything in the realm of this plan--which I don’t promise at all--two things: One, you’d want to have a very good idea of what you were looking for and how to find it rather than just roaming around at random asking everyone questions and getting into things. Two, it would be much better to do it tomorrow. People tend to be more off their guard on a holiday.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Links to the blog entries referenced in this chapter: [I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take](http://interestingmurders.blogspot.com/2013/03/i-find-it-hard-to-tell-you-i-find-it.html) (Lestrade's blog, 7 March 2013); [And it burns, burns, burns](http://interestingmurders.blogspot.com/2013/03/and-it-burnsburnsburns.html) (Lestrade's blog, 11 March 2013); [Car Punching](http://boringlifeofjohnwatson.blogspot.com/2013/03/car-punching.html) (John's blog, 5 March 2013).
> 
> Also, the not-really-an-argument referred to in this fic took place over several entries, March 15th-20th across both blogs, but started out [here](http://interestingmurders.blogspot.com/2013/03/i-have-seen-him-buying-vegetables.html). 
> 
> Thanks again to emungere and elfbert for letting me take liberties, and to Small_Hobbit for faithful Britpicking and other helpful comments, and to ollipop and king_touchy for beta notes and cheerleading on the final chapter. C'EST FINI!

Mycroft was no longer certain if he was doing all this mainly to humour Sherlock and keep him occupied, or if there was still a chance that they'd find out something genuinely useful. It wasn’t as though he were opposed to breaking into Scotland Yard and snooping around on principle. It could be very interesting, in fact. He just wasn’t sure that it would yield better results in this case than pursuing other, more rule-abiding channels for gathering information.

Sherlock disagreed. Loudly. “You’re just being stuffy and stupid again. You’re so bor--”

Mycroft cut him off. “Really, Sherlock, resorting to that word yet again? With your vocabulary?”

“MUNDANE, HUMDRUM, DULL, TEDIOUS, IRKSOME!” Sherlock shouted. “I don’t care, I like the word boring, it’s better to say. Boring boring boring BORING. Rule-abiding channels are NO FUN.”

“Is this about having fun, or is this about trying to help Lestrade?” Mycroft asked, which reduced Sherlock to silent scowling again. “I’m not ruling out going down to the Yard altogether. I’m merely pointing out that Lestrade’s colleagues don’t actually have a stake in concealing information in this situation, so it may not be useful to begin by treating them as opponents to be thwarted.”

“But they’re stu-- They do everything too slowly and they’re doing too many other things at the same time and no one will talk to us if we just ask questions, they’ll say it’s not allowed or we’re too young.”

“They may need a bit of help,” Mycroft conceded. “The main difficulty, as you say, would be in getting them to take us seriously enough to open a conversation. Sergeant Donovan would be a good place to start, since she knows us the best. What we need--”

There was a brisk knock at the door, and their mother looked in. “There’s been considerably less shouting up here than I’d been given to understand was normal for the two of you in a room together these days,” she said. “Should I worry?”

“There’s been _some_ shouting,” Mycroft said, looking pointedly at Sherlock. “But no. We’re fine. We’re working on a project of sorts.” Sherlock looked at Mycroft, then at Mummy, and nodded.

Mycroft had considered the possible advantages and disadvantages of telling their mother exactly what they were up to, and had decided only to do it if he thought she might be an expeditious factor. He had a horror of being thought childish by her, which he’d decided not to try and analyse too closely for now.

Of course, there was every chance she was already well aware of everything they were doing. She was one of the few people on earth of whom he could really never be sure.

“Did you want to go anywhere today, show me any of the interesting places you’ve found around town?” she asked them. “It might be helpful, I thought, to take your minds off things for a bit. And...I’m not sure it’s ice cream weather, exactly, but that’s never stopped Sherlock before, to my knowledge. Or we could bake?”

“No thank you,” Sherlock said, very politely.

Mycroft felt rather sorry for her at that moment. In part. Another part thought, darkly, _she made her choice. It wasn’t this._

But she said, graciously enough, that she’d leave them to it, then; perhaps later on.

“What we need,” Mycroft went on when she’d shut the door again, “is a timeline of all the cases Lestrade worked on for the past...let’s say four weeks before he became ill, to begin with. The incubation period for exposure to most pathogens is anywhere in the range of two to thirty days.”

“When he _first_ got ill or when it started up again and he had to go to A &E?” Sherlock wanted to know, seizing control of the laptop and curling up at the head of the bed with it, beginning to type madly.

“Good question. I’d say the latter, to begin with, but-- What are you looking up?”

“Lestrade’s blog. He writes loads of stuff about his cases in there. Don’t you know _anything_?”

“I try to forget,” Mycroft said, suppressing a shudder. The blogs were often far too embarrassing for him to read on a regular basis these days. He checked them on his phone sometimes, late at night, and they always seemed to have become even more horrifyingly imprudent since the last time he’d dared to look--they were the very definition of Too Much Information, as Carla would say. 

Sherlock was right, though; they could also be a significant resource in this case. “You should read back through the last month’s entries and comments, then,” Mycroft instructed him. “And the comments on John’s entries, too. Make an annotated list of every case he mentions, even obliquely. Every crime scene he visited, every suspect with whom he made contact, all the details--”

“I know I know I know,” Sherlock muttered. “It was my idea, wasn’t it? I’m not _three_. It would go a lot quicker if you'd read some on your phone at the same time, though.”

“True,” Mycroft admitted. “Very well, if I must. I’ll tackle John’s, then. Go back to mid-February to be safe.”

He lay down across the foot of the bed with his mobile and a notebook and pen, getting comfortable, and they both worked in silence for a while. “My best theory at present is that Lestrade may well have aspirated a lethal quantity of glitter,” Mycroft said eventually.

Sherlock kicked at him. “Glitter is NOT A PATHOGEN.” 

“That’s debatable, in the quantities you seem to require. Have you found anything of particular interest?”

“He got sprayed with CS spray that time,” Sherlock said. “10th of March.”

“Hm,” said Mycroft, looking it up rapidly. “It’s not ordinarily considered toxic, but there appears to be some debate in certain medical communities about possible pulmonary aftereffects. I'll make a note to investigate that further.” He closed the search window and returned to scanning through John’s blog. “Oh. The McDonald’s incident. How did I forget about that?”

Sherlock looked sceptical. “You don’t think the McDonald’s made him ill? He and John only said it was disgusting.”

“No, I’m more concerned about the fact that he met someone there who made threats to him. Or reported that someone else had made threats, to be precise.”

Sherlock sat bolt upright. _“Poison.”_

“Let’s not leap to conclusions, please. I’m not sure there are any poisons that attack the lungs primarily--not without systemic effects that would have been more immediately evident.”

“I want to look them up! Or maybe they invented a new one. That’s what I would have done.”

Mycroft looked at Sherlock, lit up like an excited, slightly grubby firework in the middle of his bed, and didn’t have the heart to remind him again what was at stake in this investigation. Sherlock read his expression, though, and instantly dimmed.

“I keep forgetting,” he admitted. “This would be _really fun_ if it weren’t about Lestrade.”

“It’s good, actually, if you can forget about it while you work on solving the problem,” Mycroft told him. “The ability to detach yourself emotionally will increase your chances of success.” 

He watched Sherlock trying to work out whether he’d just been given a compliment or not by his older brother, and how much value he ought to place on it if he had. 

“Anyway,” Mycroft went on. “We’ll investigate the possibility of a deliberately administered toxin, yes. Did you find anything else in the blog for that time frame?”

Sherlock looked at his notes. “7 March. ‘Spent today stuffed in a dark evidence store, breathing the dust of a thousand ruined lives.’ He started coughing a lot again right after that. Dust doesn’t make people actually ill, though, does it?”

“Certain types of dust can be very damaging to the lungs--silica, for example, or asbestos. They’d generally only have an observable effect after years of exposure. Still, we’ll want to look into that as well. Maybe that would be reason enough to go to Lestrade’s workplace, in fact; we could try to obtain a sample.”

It was becoming painful to look at Sherlock, who had very much the appearance of a small boy who was trying to process the fact that he was being given the exact sort of thing to do he’d always dreamt of, whilst still in danger of losing one of the few people he’d ever wholeheartedly loved. 

“I think he’d want you to get excited over trying to investigate things that could help him,” Mycroft said, and Sherlock grinned.

*

John spent Saturday morning having a civilised but increasingly tense argument with Lestrade’s new doctor about the breathing tube insertion.

“You need to leave this to us,” she told him firmly.

“I can’t,” said John, who’d watched and assisted with and performed hundreds of intubations, with and without anesthetic, and knew what it looked like when one got botched. “I know, I know you’re not incompetent, but it’ll set my mind at ease if I could just scrub in and observe.”

“No, it won’t,” she said. “You’ll be on edge the entire time waiting for something to go wrong. Which it won’t.”

“I’ll be even more on edge in the waiting room imagining it. Sorry, sorry, not your problem, I know, but--”

“You need to take a sedative and find somewhere to sleep for eight hours.” She gave him a look that was at once sharp and terribly compassionate. “Has no one here prescribed you anything? How long has it been since you’ve slept?”

John shook his head. “I’d like to meet with the anaesthetist. What are you planning to use? Not a general, I’m assuming.”

She sighed. “No, it’s too risky with his breathing this compromised. It’ll be a standard rapid sequence intubation--fentanyl and ketamine, and he’ll be in soft restraints. It will be over _very quickly._ ”

“Ketamine and soft restraints? Jesus. He’ll hallucinate, he’ll--that could be bad, that could be...please trust me, that could be very very bad. You’ve got to let me be in the room with him.”

“I can’t do that. You’re a liability. You have to see that, Dr. Watson.”

She wasn’t going to back down. She was truly beginning to think he was a bit mad, John saw, and that didn’t bode well. He was going to need her to trust him. On the other hand, the thought of Lestrade half-conscious and delusional, strapped down while things were forced down his throat...

“You’ve gone completely pale. He’ll be in an operating room surrounded by medical staff,” she reminded him patiently. “You’ll be with him in recovery. Please listen to reason.”

In the end he consented, because he suspected she was probably right, and in any case he couldn’t listen to Lestrade gasp at the oxygen mask any longer while John dicked around trying to make up his mind. He tried to explain to Lestrade what the procedure was going to involve and that he wouldn’t be able to speak once the tube was in, but even though Lestrade was awake and looking at him and apparently focusing, John had no idea if he was actually getting through to him or not. The last few times Lestrade had managed to say a few words, he’d been convinced he was recovering from his bike accident. The one he’d had years ago, long before they’d met.

He found himself half wishing Lestrade would say something ridiculous or random when he removed the oxygen mask to kiss him one last time before they took him away. Something not at all last-wordy. John should say something totally irreverent, probably; that would help. In the end, though, he couldn't help saying "I love you," like an enormous sap, and Lestrade said "Yeah, love you," back, and that was all he had breath for.

John hoped Lestrade had actually been saying it to him. It wasn't exactly the sort of thing you could ask. 

*

It was a quick procedure, and went well, apparently, although John was still more or less tormented by the fact that he’d never know.

"His heart rate's up," he said, when the doctor came round for the post-operative check. 

"Still within the high normal range," she pointed out. 

"Only just."

"It should drop as the ketamine wears off,” she said, a bit distractedly, checking Lestrade’s eyes with a penlight. “His pupillary response suggests he's still hallucinating a bit at present. It was a tough procedure; difficult airway. Lung sounds are good now, though. Comparatively. I need to discuss something else with you, actually, Dr. Watson. I'm concerned about the numbers from the blood screens we ran this morning."

"Concerned," said John, amazed again at how the adrenalin rush just never quit, after days and days of this. It never got any less intense, either; it was like being in combat. "Concerned why? Which numbers?"

"They indicate decreased liver function and early renal failure. Whatever this is, my guess is that it's moving through the bloodstream now and beginning to attack all his systems."

*

John called Mrs. Holmes. "What sort of alternatives?" he demanded. "Exactly what and where?"

"I can't tell you that," she said. 

"Of course not."

"There's a government facility. Visitors are absolutely prohibited, I'm afraid."

"Right. So they'd just…take him, and I'd wait. Is it someplace in London? Is it even in the country?"

She said nothing, which was what he'd expected.

"Jesus," John said. "Jesus Christ. All right. If…Monday morning. I'll give it till then. Can you do that? It's a bank holiday."

"Immaterial," Mrs. Holmes said. "I can arrange for it right away, if you prefer."

"Monday morning," John said firmly, and disconnected the call.

*

Mycroft hadn’t been able to reach John for the past hour. He’d set Sherlock to the task of researching and cataloguing all the poisonous substances he could discover that might affect pulmonary function, along with their various other side-effects and how commonly available they were by region, so Sherlock was silent except for occasional excited outbursts whenever he found something new and potentially relevant (or particularly horrible).

Mycroft, meanwhile, was reading about acute silicosis--rare but possible after a single high-concentration exposure, irreversible, often fatal--and growing more and more alarmed. He was over-Googling and getting carried away by theories with no evidence to support them, no doubt, but...he wished he could talk to John. And he wanted a status report. And he was beginning to believe he’d made a terrible mistake in half-promising Sherlock he’d take him to Lestrade’s office to sniff around there; everything seemed to be spinning out of control suddenly. 

“What about going back to the hospital for a visit?” he asked Sherlock, after the third time he’d texted John with no response. “It’s been a couple of days.”

“I don’t want to,” Sherlock said. “Thallium poisoning was _incredibly_ popular with murderers in the last century, did you know? It's really really hard to detect and they used it in rat poison so it was easy to get and ALL these women in Australia used it to kill their husbands and sons-in-law and things in 1952--they called it the Thallium Craze. It makes your hair fall out, though, when it doesn't kill you straight away, so it's probably not what was used on Lestrade."

"We don't know that anything was used on Lestrade," Mycroft reminded him. "I think--you won't hear me say this often, but I think we're researching too much. And I'm sure John misses you. I know the last time you went it was--"

"Not talking about it, not going," Sherlock said. "You go if you want."

Mycroft wasn't sure if he ought to press the issue or not, but it would probably be useless to try and reason with Sherlock in this state, and anyway he'd get more information from John on his own. "Fine," he said. "I'll go and see if Mummy wants to come with me or not; if she does, I'm sure Mrs. Hudson will look after you. Just don't go talking about rat poisons to her."

Mummy declined the hospital visit, which was unsurprising, and Anthea said she’d be only too glad to get out for a bit, so they went.

In retrospect, Mycroft thought later, it was incredibly stupid of him to have left all his notes out for Sherlock to peruse at his leisure.

*

John was asleep in the waiting room, which explained why he hadn’t answered any of the texts. Mycroft would have felt terrible about waking him except that John was clearly extremely glad to see him. 

“I keep thinking I ought to go home for at least a bit,” he said, after they’d been talking for a while. “I just...can’t. But I do feel like I’m being torn in two all the time. Is Sherlock...I don’t even know what to ask. I’d keep him here with me, if I could. Maybe I should have tried. It would be horrible for him, but...”

“You’re very badly sleep-deprived if you think that would be remotely feasible, let alone advisable,” Mycroft told him. 

“I am very badly sleep-deprived,” John agreed, and let his head fall back against the waiting-room sofa. “I’m losing my mind a bit. More than a bit. I’m hardly able to sit here and talk to you right now, to be honest, as much as I want to see you. I keep thinking what if Lestrade wakes up, and doesn’t see anyone he knows, and doesn’t know where he is or even when he is...I can’t stop imagining what he might think.”

Mycroft knew what John meant, obviously. He’d just been reading their blogs. That not-quite-an-argument they’d had, the week before Lestrade became ill again--it had made him tense and sick to witness it all by proxy in real time, and it was even worse to read through it again with the knowledge of what was about to happen to them. He couldn’t imagine how it must feel to be John and have the guilt of those words in his head all the time, and with the lack of sleep playing tricks on his mind, too, probably, making things seem even worse than they were. 

“I could go in and sit with Lestrade for a while,” he offered. Anthea glanced up at him from her seat at the far end of the waiting room, where she’d installed herself with her mobile almost the moment after they’d walked in. She hadn’t had much to say to him on the way over, but then she almost never did. “Obviously I’m not you, but he’d recognise me. Or...if he didn’t, anyway, there’d be someone. You could sleep a bit more, or go home and see Sherlock, even--”

John hugged him, hard, which was awkward, and then stepped back and apologised, which was even more awkward. 

“Only for as long as you want to,” John said. “Five minutes, an hour, anything. I won’t leave, I’ll stay here and rest a bit more, but...yes, you should see him, sit with him, if you don’t mind, that would be...nice.”

*

It wasn’t nice. It was terrible. _Discipline and focus_ , Mycroft repeated to himself like a mantra, but it was incredibly difficult to focus on anything but the miasma of worry and despair that seemed to permeate the entire ward like a heavy fog. It didn’t wear off with time, either, he discovered; its weight was cumulative, so that after a few minutes it was all he could do to continue to breathe through it. Eventually, he remembered that it would be an extremely opportune time to make observations, and forced himself to look closely at the figure in the bed, which he hadn’t quite been focusing his eyes on till now. 

He’d been shown to the wrong cubicle, Mycroft thought for a startled moment. This wasn’t anyone he knew, this was someone much older. He studied the man’s face, half-obscured by tubing and white tape. “Lestrade?” he said finally, tentatively, in a breaking squeak.

The eyes blinked half-open, looked on him with disinterest, then rolled up showing mainly whites before closing again. There’d been something briefly recognisable there, though, enough to punch him in the gut and make him want to flee. 

How did John bear this, for hours on end? Mycroft wasn’t sure he could last ten minutes. Observations, he reminded himself. He studied the chart at the foot of the bed and calmed himself with numbers and notations until he could look up again. The blue hospital blanket was flipped down at the foot of the bed, he noticed, leaving Lestrade’s legs and feet uncovered. Another punch; Mycroft couldn’t help thinking of the dreaded shorts and flip-flops, which he genuinely despised even if he secretly enjoyed the fact that they’d become a sort of private joke. It took him a minute to register the rash.

Rash on the lower legs. That rang a bell. It was a faint bell, though; his head was simply too crammed with lists of symptoms and side-effects and causative agents. He needed his spreadsheets. Could he leave now, say it was too much for him, take the excuse to run out? Perhaps the rash was insignificant; it was faint, so faint he hadn’t noticed it at first. Perhaps he was imagining excuses to escape?

Mycroft gathered his wits and got out his mobile to send a message to Sherlock. When he hadn't got a reply after five minutes, he sent a text to his mother.

_Could you ask Sherlock to check his messages, please?_

_Sherlock’s with you, I thought,_ she texted back at once. _Sherlock’s not with you?_

*

Sergeant Donovan was having an utterly shit day, to cap off one of the worst weeks in recent memory. Most of Lestrade’s open cases had been dispersed throughout the department, but she’d been responsible for bringing everyone up to speed and for all the paperwork on the recently closed cases--and had taken on two press conferences and a court date, to cap it all off. She’d given up on having any sort of weekend at all by around Wednesday, let alone a long one. Yesterday she’d given up hope on Easter Sunday as well, and had had to take flack from her mum about it, as if she’d have _chosen_ to spend the holiday holed up indoors at a desk.

Actually, Sally reflected, there wasn’t much to choose from between family dinner at her mum’s flat and a two-foot stack of case files. At least the files didn’t ask her about the state of her love life or hint that she wasn’t getting any younger. She’d never have wanted to get out of it this way, though.

At first she’d been furious with the boss for not looking after himself better. Furious with John, even, though at least he tried, and what could anyone do with someone who was so determined to run himself into the ground? Still, she’d been a bit shocked that anyone could possibly live with such a cough and ignore it for any length of time.

Her anger lost ground after seeing the pair of them in hospital, though. For the past two years she’d watched John remain perfectly, reassuringly calm and in control throughout dozens of the boss’s scrapes, so she knew that when he got rattled, things were really, really not good.

And the boss looked in worse shape than she’d ever seen him, which was saying something.

Good to have the paperwork to focus on, really. With fewer people around the office at the weekend she could actually make a dent in it, too; she lost herself in it for two hours that afternoon without looking up once. She even forgot to be anxious when her desk phone rang. It wasn’t from an outside line, anyway--it was Security ringing up from downstairs.

*

“On your own, you are,” she repeated, arms crossed, staring down at Sherlock in disbelief. “All on your own, you decided to take off. With your...your people already in a mess, you thought you'd add on to their troubles by disappearing in the middle of it? You’re going to be in trouble like I can’t believe. Why are you here? This had better be good.”

“It _is_ ,” Sherlock said, crossing his own arms back at her and planting his feet. “No one’s worrying about me right now, and you can see I’m safe. I was extremely careful.” His voice went smaller, and he hung his head slightly. “I really needed to talk to you about Lestrade. Mycroft said you’d be a good person to ask.”

Sally considered him. “You could give lessons to con artists,” she said finally. “Bet you practised that in a mirror, didn’t you?”

“No!” Sherlock insisted. She raised an eyebrow. “Only a little! I really do need to talk to you. Please? Five minutes, and then you can call John, or...put me in the cells, arrest me, anything!”

“I’m not arresting a kid. Much less the boss's kid. Did _phoning me up_ never occur to you?” she wanted to know. “Right, come on, come up to my desk. I’ll give you _two_ minutes. At most.” She watched his little shoulders sag with relief before she turned to lead the way.

*

"He's gone down to the Yard," Mycroft explained, avoiding John's and Anthea's eyes. "We think. Mummy's already on her way there. It's my fault. It was...not a game, exactly, but I was letting him think we could find evidence there pertaining to whatever's made Lestrade ill. I thought so too. A bit. It's not as ridiculous as it sounds," he added defensively, his face flaming hot.

"I don't think it sounds ridiculous," John said. "I just don't see why he wouldn't--all right, I do see, yes. What is he expecting to find, based on whatever theories you've come up with?"

Mycroft swallowed. "Toxic quantities of silica dust in an evidence storage locker?" he said, then added quickly, "I don't think he'll actually find it! There probably isn't. And he'd never be able to get that far."

"He's surprisingly resourceful," John said grimly. "Has anyone contacted Sergeant Donovan? Or the desk staff at the main entrance, even?"

"Not...I don't know. My mother may have phoned them from her taxi."

"I’m on it," Anthea said, dialling the number on her mobile.

Mycroft went on. "Mummy was in a bit of a panic. Sherlock left right after I did; he called out to her that he'd changed his mind and decided to go with me and Anthea after all, and then she heard the door slam and our car leave a minute later. We never saw him."

"So he's had a while to get to wherever he's going," John said, looking more steely and less crumpled again. "I don't know whether to hope he's at the Yard or not. Mycroft, do you actually believe there's something in a storage locker down there that could have caused...that could harm Sherlock if he somehow manages to get into it?"

Mycroft wasn't sure what to say.

"He's definitely there," Anthea reported. "Somewhere in the building. He left the front desk with Sergeant Donovan, but she's not answering her extension. Exact whereabouts unknown."

John and Mycroft looked at each other, and Mycroft watched him make a hard decision very quickly. John's face was extraordinary, really; you could see the cost of every single option as it occurred to him. "Stay with Lestrade," John ordered. "I'm going to go find your brother."

*

Sally regretted not having put Sherlock in handcuffs when she turned round and realised he wasn’t following her--not that he could have gone far, or would get far before someone else stopped him, but how ridiculous would it be to have to admit she’d lost him? She retraced her steps back down the corridor, cautiously.

A tiny chime from behind a half-closed door made her freeze. She listened again, heard a very small, muffled “No!”, and went over and opened the supply cupboard she’d just walked past. Sherlock was crouched on the floor, clutching a small mobile phone and looking stricken at her.

“Rule number one for master criminals: always put your mobile on vibrate,” she told him dryly. “Better still, leave it at home.”

“I’m not being a criminal, I’m DETECTING,” he informed her, getting to his feet.

"I wouldn't have thought this would seem to you like a good time to play games," Sally said. "Look, I know you're going through some bad stuff, Sherlock--news flash, it's bad for a lot of us--and maybe you feel like not enough attention's being paid to you right now, but I have got to get on the phone to someone who can pick you up. Or I could take you over to the hospital in a car to meet John, after I talk to him, but you can't possibly be here. People are trying to do their jobs--you know what we do here, you know it's important. No games here, mate."

Sherlock ignored her. He was staring at his text message. "I know what it is, I think," he said, looking up at Sally with those weird eyes he had. God, she'd never say so to the boss, but he was a seriously strange kid--creeped her right out sometimes.

"Did you not hear a word I just said?" she demanded.

"No. I'm thinking. Was Lestrade investigating any dead Americans?"

"What?" This was getting too bizarre. "Look, come on, enough of this already. I'm calling John. I can't discuss cases with you."

"I'M RIGHT!" Sherlock shouted. "You're remembering something, I can tell. It's perfect, the symptoms all fit and they'd never have tested him for it because he hasn't travelled to America recently. Sergeant Donovan, you have to help me get into the evidence room! The one Lestrade was working in on the 7th of March. I was going to try and get away once you got me in past Security and find it on my own because I'm really excellent at picking locks, but it'll be a lot quicker if you can help me find the American's stuff, maybe it was in his clothes or on his shoes--"

He was getting loud, and Sally pulled him aside into a conference room and sat him down in a chair, shutting the door behind them.

“I have to text Mycroft back,” Sherlock protested.

"Not just yet you don’t. I want to know what you’re talking about. Start at the beginning," Sally told him. "Go slow."

*

Mrs. Holmes must have arrived at the Yard only shortly before John did, because there was only a small kerfuffle at the main entrance and no one appeared to have been flayed yet--though she and Sergeant Donovan were going at each other verbally pretty hard. John didn’t catch the gist of their discussion, because his eyes had zoomed in at once on the drooping little figure by Mrs. Holmes’ side. Sherlock looked up and saw him come in the door and tried to break free, but his mother had a tight hold around his shoulders and grasped onto him tighter still without glancing away or losing any of her conversational flow or volume.

John went to him instead, and found himself down on his knees gripping Sherlock’s hands before he even knew what he was doing. “Are you all right? Did you get into anything?” he asked, pushing the curls back from Sherlock’s face. “Did he get into anything?” he asked more loudly, looking up at the two women arguing over his head.

“Not for lack of trying, but no,” Sally told him.

“I wanted to be the one to find it,” Sherlock said. Mrs. Holmes released him, and John got both arms around him and breathed him in for a long moment: the small known weight of him, his particular smell. Then he held Sherlock back at arm’s length and looked hard at him again.

“You promised,” he reminded Sherlock. “Not ever.”

“I know.” Sherlock was managing to look tired and mutinous and sorry and overwhelmed all at once. “You can take away my bike things and not give me cake again ever, but please can you make them give me back my mobile for just one minute or let me use yours so I can send a message to Mycroft? He doesn’t know yet. And could you talk to Lestrade’s doctors and ask them to test him for histoplasmosis, because everyone’s been busy arguing and I don’t think anyone’s done anything about it yet.”

“Wait, _what_?” said John.

*

It was unlikely, but possible, Sergeant Donovan confirmed, that there could have been toxic mould spores in the effects of the American whose death they'd been investigating--they were still investigating his background, but he'd come over only recently and there was a chance he’d had contaminated dirt about him. _No one,_ she told Sherlock firmly, was going in the evidence room to take samples of anything tonight, but they’d get forensics on it as a priority; she’d see to it personally.

“Nothing else fits, none of the poisons or anything, so it has to be,” Sherlock said complacently.

John said he didn’t know about that, and histoplasmosis contamination was well outside his area of medical expertise--it was transmitted by bat droppings, wasn’t it, or birds?--but he’d bring it up with Lestrade’s doctor, certainly. Mould-borne diseases were generally very treatable with antifungals, he thought, but he wasn’t going to allow himself to hope just yet.

Mrs. Holmes was avoiding looking at or speaking directly to John. He wondered if she were wishing she’d be called away to help prevent a medium-sized civil war somewhere or other, and thought that she probably was.

“I wouldn’t say much of anything to Sherlock tonight,” he told her, when it was clear that she wasn’t going to approach him of her own accord. “Feed him something and put him to bed--tell him you’ll talk to him tomorrow. Or I will. Or both, I imagine.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “I’ll definitely be having a conversation with him about responsible methodology. Among other things. I feel as though I ought to apologise to you right now, although in a way that would seem...not right at all.”

“It’s complicated, yeah,” he said. They both looked at Sherlock, who was trying to make the metal detectors in the entrance go off with various things he’d found in his pockets, in other people’s pockets, and with bits of debris he’d picked up off the floor in the last five minutes.

“You have an extraordinarily difficult job,” Mrs. Holmes told John.

“Well,” John said. “I do love it. Him. Them. I’ve got to get back. I’ll send Mycroft and Anthea home as soon as I arrive.”

*

Mycroft’s mobile had been agonisingly silent for what felt like a very long time indeed after John had left, and then at last messages had begun to flood in--Sherlock’s in excited all-caps, John’s hastily abbreviated and rife with ridiculous emoticons, his mother’s laconic and properly punctuated like his own.

He hadn’t known how to answer any of them, except to say _Thank you for letting me know,_ which sounded stiff and horrible, probably. He thought that Sherlock’s answer was probably the correct one, even though he could tell Sherlock was furious and disappointed that he hadn’t been able carry out the final stages of his plan and confirm the presence of toxins in the evidence room dust. _Don’t get hung up on the process,_ Mycroft texted to him. _Results =/= laboratory proof in every case._

 _John isn’t even pleased though,_ Sherlock texted back. _He says we’ll see._

 _You shouldn’t have run off. It was dangerous. Stupid,_ Mycroft told him.

_BUT I’M RIGHT. --SH_

Which was typical Sherlock: loud, reckless, eager to take any risk. He was only a child, after all. But the fact remained that Mycroft was the one stuck in the shadows, still shouldering the terrible reality of the present moment. Lestrade remained immobilised and unaware for now, with a long road to recovery ahead of him even if Sherlock were right.

Mycroft sat by keeping watch, not knowing what to do, until John finally returned. He came back in a sweeping rush and made a beeline for Lestrade, looking anxiously at his stats and then leaning over him with a sigh, resting his forehead against Lestrade’s with his eyes shut for a long moment. Mycroft turned away; it was as embarrassing as reading their blogs. And yet nice, too, in a confusing way. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to say a word to Lestrade during the entire hour and forty minutes he’d been sitting there--could Lestrade even hear him? wouldn’t anything uttered at a hospital bedside simply reek of mawkish cliché?--but John had no such qualms, apparently, and was murmuring all kinds of things now that Mycroft was quite sure he didn’t want to overhear. Time to make a quiet exit.

John got up and hugged him again as soon as he tried to leave, though, whispering _thank you thank you thank you, I’ll talk to you in the morning, all right?_ and he didn’t apologise for it this time, though he kept it mercifully brief.

Embarrassing but nice, Mycroft thought again, and hoped he wasn’t blushing when he went out to rejoin Anthea. She wouldn’t say anything, but she _looked_.

*

Lestrade's young doctor had about decided they were all cracked, John was fairly sure, but she ordered the skin test for histoplasmosis anyway. It came back late in the day on Sunday with a positive result, which was hands down the best birthday present John had ever received.

“So he’ll get better now,” Sherlock said, sitting on John’s lap in the hospital waiting area, eating an Easter egg. One of his punishments for running off had been no eggs of his own to find this year--harsh but fair, John had agreed with the boys’ mother--but Mycroft had given him one of his. 

“Not right away,” John told him. “It’s going to take a while. We’ll have to see if the drugs they give him will work, and there’s a good chance they’ll make him feel really ill for a while even if they help his breathing improve--he won’t be able to come home for days and days yet.”

“Days and DAYS?” Sherlock moaned.

“Better than _never again_ ,” Mycroft said.

John winced; he was still coming to terms with the fact that he’d been facing all the brutal possibilities himself, let alone that the boys had been dealing with it more or less on their own. “You two were pretty amazing. I don’t know that anyone would have ever thought to test for rare moulds as a cause--maybe, but possibly not in time to--anyway, it was good, it was a good thing.”

“I solved it,” Sherlock said, with his mouth full of chocolate.

“All by yourself, did you?” John asked.

“Mycroft helped. A bit.”

“More than a bit, I imagine,” John corrected him, looking over at Mycroft, but Mycroft gave him a small smile and shrugged. 

*

Nicky said she'd be back that night and could stay for at least a few days, so Mrs. Holmes was preparing to leave again. She asked Mycroft if he’d like to come with her for the remainder of his holidays--she’d be at a conference in Nice, and wouldn’t be able to entertain him much, but he’d have a quiet hotel room in which to study and would be able to explore on his own as long as he had a security team member accompanying him at all times.

“But not Sherlock,” Mycroft clarified.

“I can’t handle Sherlock,” she admitted. “I enjoy seeing him, very much--if I could only just observe him from a distance, I would want to watch him all the time. He’s fascinating. Lovely and fascinating. And utterly relentless. I can’t give him what he needs.”

At least she knew that, Mycroft thought. At least she’d arranged for him to get it elsewhere. Mycroft had preferred it, perhaps, when she hadn’t felt she could tell him these things, but he could see why she’d want him to know. 

He thought of himself at Sherlock’s age, newly fatherless, and wondered if he’d fascinated her at that age, too. Had she tried to find parental replacements for him as well? Perhaps these were the ones he was meant to have, even if they’d come a bit late. John had been in Afghanistan seven years ago. Lestrade had been married to someone who’d been...the opposite of John. Some things didn’t bear thinking about. 

“I’d rather not leave until Lestrade’s condition is more stable,” he told her. “Perhaps another time.” 

He was glad she was going, he thought, helping her carry her things to the car, but glad she kept coming back, too. 

*

Lestrade woke to coughing, endless inescapable painful coughing. He was doomed to cough forever, apparently. But this time felt different, he registered after a moment--he was coughing something _out_ , hard, solid: the breathing tube. It was both immeasurable relief and utter panic. 

It had been a good thing, in an odd way, to be robbed of speech. He had a vague feeling he’d often been saying the wrong things. Hovering on the edges of delirium, Lestrade’s drugged brain had made sense of the strangeness in his throat by telling him he was being gagged by all the wrong things he’d ever said, choked and strangled by them as just punishment for his sins. 

It was out now, though, and he was breathing air, on his own, cold and stinging. He opened his eyes and John was there, looking pleased instead of worried for once. 

“Hi,” John said. “Still here, love? I’ve got a lot to tell you.”

*

Mycroft had to return to Harrow at the end of the following weekend. Lestrade hadn’t been cleared to go home yet, but he’d been moved to a different ward, one that reeked less of tragedy and dread. He had fewer wires and tubes attached to him and was able to withstand at least a moderate amount of being climbed on by a small boy, which was fortunate. Sherlock had decided to be helpful to the doctors by making Lestrade breathe into a peak flow metre several times per day (“per day, not per hour!” Lestrade protested) and charting the results to measure his overall lung function. It was a very colourful chart; everyone on the ward had been made to admire it. 

“I really did muck up your holidays,” Lestrade told Mycroft when he came to say goodbye.

“You certainly did,” Mycroft agreed. “They were highly educational, at least. Perhaps I can use some of the material for my personal statement essay when I apply to university.”

“Oh, God, who’d believe it?” Lestrade groaned. He was beginning to look and sound a bit more like himself again, Mycroft thought, and didn’t envy John the task of dealing with him and Sherlock at the same time during Lestrade’s recovery over the next few weeks. 

“You’d better go,” Lestrade advised him. “Else I’m going to wind up saying embarrassing things.”

“I’m in danger of saying a few myself,” Mycroft said. “Goodbye, then.”

When he left, he looked back at the door and saw that John and Lestrade were talking again; John was laughing over something, and Lestrade looked tired but happy. Sherlock had got into the bed with Lestrade and was curled up alongside him in a sleepy heap, and Lestrade petted him absently while still saying something to John. 

It hurt to look at them. Not entirely a good kind of hurt. Anyway, Mycroft told himself as he turned away again, he’d be back in a few weeks for another visit. And they were his in a way--to observe, if not to keep.


End file.
